Back story is, we moved here from my home country 4 years ago. We live in a different city to my inlaws, mil and stepfather in law, a plane ride or about 10 hours drive away. We see them for a week about 4 times a year.
We have been to them for Christmas twice and they have been to us once.
Last time they came to us was two years ago. From my point of view it was a disaster. I thought they basically felt they were hosting Christmas in my house and I was the guest.
When they arrived they started bringing bags and bags of groceries in, we hadn't asked them to pick anything up and we had already done the grocery shopping. MIL started telling me what we were going to have for Christmas dinner. I said we'd already decided.
They then went back out to the car and into our bedroom, they were in there deciding where to put a new rug they'd brought down....without asking us. They also put rugs & carpets in other area of the house and put away utensils and some other little things they'd bought for our house.
They then proceeded to put up decorations they'd brought down.
They also bought our son presents from them and Santa after we told them Santa presents were only to come from us.
To me, they just walked around and pissed in every corner marking their territory.
My husband was at work at the time and to my shame I didn't say anything, I was stunned at the cheek of them and have been brought up to be polite so felt I'd be rude to say anything. Truthfully, I was a coward as I hate confrontation.
They stayed for two weeks and I was just full of pent up silent resentment and passive aggressive.
We had just moved to the area and I didn't know anyone to escape to have a drink or vent to.
One day I came home and all the pots and pans had been re-arranged and moved to a different cupboard.
My husband didn't get why I was in such a bad mood and catered to their every whim to make up for it.
My husband's defense of all this was:
the food and expectation that they'd dictate what we'd have - well, when he was growing up, his grandmother would come and do that, they didn't want us to spend any extra money on them.
the rugs etc - well, we were just starting out in a new house and they wanted to help us out, rented houses here don't come furnished so they wanted to save us money.
the decorations - well, some of them were from his childhood and since we hadn't spent Christmas with them in so long his mom just got overexcited. (We'd spent the previous Christmas with them)
He says his mom loves us and really wants to be involved and is only ever trying to help.
I already have some issues with his mom and her steeping over boundaries i.e doing something with ds that I've asked not to. Things have gotten better of late, I've stood up for myself more and they've backed off a bit.
DH doesn't think they ever do anything wrong, they're only ever guilty of being over-enthusiastic and I'm too quick to think the worst of them.
Another element to this is, whenever they come, they sit and badmouth every single other person in the family. They reserve most of it for DH's brother, who hasn't been to visit them since they married and moved here 20 years ago.
Soooo, thanks for getting this far. They're coming for two weeks again this year, I'll be 33 weeks pregnant and it's our first Christmas in a house we built.
I'm determined to make this one better...for everyone but it will involve me having to woman up and say what I want instead of hoping they get it and then getting pissed off when they don't.
I'm in an email exchange with MIL at the moment about presents and feel it's my chance to kindly set some boundaries. They've already told us, not asked, when they're coming regardless of any plans we may have and I'm already feeling unreasonably angry about this. I think two weeks is too long. DH of course has said that's all fine, whatever they want is good with us.
They moved DH from his home country, away from his dad and brother, to here when he was 15 and then when he was 18 moved back to the home country while he stayed here before he moved to UK where he met me and stayed for a few years. They moved back here while DH was in UK. Up until 4 years ago they had lived in different countries for 15 years.
I basically want to say, we're looking forward to seeing you, please don't feel you have to bring anything down apart from presents, with the pregnancy we want to have a relaxed few weeks and we are look own family traditions in the new house.....but I want to be a bit more assertive.
Sorry for the long post, I'm quite irritable with this pregnancy and every email I start to them comes across confrontational. They do love ds and are very good grandparents.
Thanks if you've got this far!