To be dreading Christmas already?

[Toomanycoatstocount]

Do a bit of lurking and now have decided to post (and expect to get bashed for being so Scrooge-like!)
AIBU to be dreading Christmas already?!
I'm a nurse, am due to start a new job soonish so could be working, and I have to go to my in laws who drive me slightly mad and they want to go out for Christmas dinner!
Any requests on dealing with this (or kicks up the bum!) would be great

My dad died very unexpectedly on Christmas Day last year so this year we were not looking forward to it at all but the family have pulled together and we are all going to spend it together and whilst we will all miss our dad terribly we are glad & grateful we still have each other.

Oh no, Team, that's really sad.

I don't like Christmas Day - not really looking forward to it.

You have a responsibility go yourself to live your own life. Your family have a responsibility to let you live your own life. My responsibility to my children was to being them up to have their own happy fulfilled lives, not be guilted onto spending Christmas as they don't wish to fulfil my whims. I have chosen how I spend mine. They choose how to spend theirs. I find your comment of responsibility to your family more important than your own wishes (especially on something like this) so very sad. I'd be ashamed to think I'd instilled this almost fear and guilt into my children. Please review this way of thinking, it's not familial love or duty. It's a burden. Owrsonally I'd say making someone feel that way over things like this is abusive. You are as entitled to your own life, Christmas, whatever as they are.

Op would you want to make your children feel like that?

Yanbu. I dread the years we are going to spend Christmas with my parents, which I limit to 1 in 4. So I have 3 years out of 4 when I can look forward to Christmas. 1/4 with a Christmas I hate and dread but it stops me feeling guilty the other 3 years.

Team, my cousin's Dad died unexpectedly on Christmas Day two years ago and that first Christmas afterwards was so very hard. She is determined, however, to make Christmas a celebration of his life as well as a magical time for her children. I'm so sorry for your loss.

I adore Christmas precisely because I celebrate it in a way which suits both me and my family. We all like each other and we compromise. I think it's the obligation and stress that ruins Christmas for so many people. Instead of it being a celebration, it becomes a chore. I'm very lucky to have family who work to make it special for everybody, catering to everybody's tastes.

Screw it though. Do things your own way.

NCIS, DH is a copper (as is SIL and BIL is a paramedic) so we're quite used to the problem you face. Last year DH worked all day Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I was gutted. However, we jigged things round and in the end, it worked out. We just had to get creative.

I normally love Christmas but not this year. My DF has fronto temporal dementia and is getting bad now. Although he still lives with DM, it is so sad to see him like this especially at Christmas- which he loved. I think this might be the last one he is even vaguely aware of. It breaks my heart.

If your husband's an only child, why don't they have a spare bed for you both when you stay? Did they chuck his bed out when he left?

My ILs and parents are dead, DS is grown up and out, no GC get on with it please DS so Christmas is flat as a pancake. If I was in the sort of work which requires 24 hour cover I'd volunteer for the CD shifts in exchange for a long weekend when the weather makes it worth having.

I used to hate it when I was younger and felt I had to do the family thing/inlaw thing and keep everyone happy.
Now I'm old enough to have gotten over all that I really enjoy it :)

I don't understand why you can't do something because you just don't fancy it. I don't feel obliged to do anything I don't want to do.

Put yourself down to work (or say you're down) so you can't possibly commit to spending Christmas with anyone. Then have a quiet one.

Seriously if you don't stand up for yourself, they will continue to walk all over you.

Me and DH have said once my GPs aren't around d we may go away for Christmas. Sod anyone else.

Dont go to their house - its really that simple !

I hate it too. I have no family other than my mum with whom I have a very difficult relationship. She doesn't get on with DP and he is NC with his immediate family. Whole thing is depressing and shit and I dread it every year.

Loads of sympathy here OP. I can't bear it - its the most overhyped, commercialised, claustrophobic time of year. I look forward to January because I know that Spring is on the way and the madness is over for another year.

I very much relate to your sense of family obligation too. I went to my parents for Christmas every year until I was 30 because they made me feel it was my job to make it a happy occasion for them. One year I decided that enough was enough and I went to my in laws instead - the guilt was rough but manageable. This year, I'm hoping that DP and I will just stay home by ourselves and ignore the whole thing, or at least just treat it like a long weekend. And my angst, and resentment and anger over the whole thing is nothing like it used to be.

'Dont go to their house - its really that simple !'

Its both that simple and that difficult You really can do it though. You're not a child, and you deserve to have the sort of Christmas you want

In my late teens and v.early 20s (married and mortgaged) i could have done my own thing for xmas, but towed the family line and traveled to my parents for half a day, then traveled to my (now X) ILs for the 2nd half of every xmas day before finally going back home to relax, late afternoon - stuffed, stressed, knackered and fed up.

When DD1 was born a couple of years later i decided no more xmas days were going to be spend slogging round London and announced that anyone wishing to see us on xmas day would need to come to us (and were welcome, of course) but that we'd be making xmas for our DCs at their own home.

This caused much consternation at the time, and raising of eyebrows, but no one actually spontaneously combusted. (I've stuck to this plan for the last 22 years)

The immediate upshot was been that my parents (and the odd aunt) have would come to me for xmas dinner, and we'd travel to see the ILs on boxing day or the day after (because they stuck to their guns about not wanting to leave the house on xmas day either. Fine by us)

My dear father has passed away now, but DDs 1 and 2 have started bringing their DPs round for xmas dinners, I have a DD3 and 4 as well now, my mother and the odd aunt (there is just one) now spend the whole day here and xmas is becoming quite enormous with DH and i in the middle of it. It is stressful again but in a nice way. Everyone seems to look forward to it. (I hope they really do!!).

Toomanycoats Unfortunately I'm working the weekend before too, My DD is a nurse and is working Christmas day but they have a system where those who work Christmas get New Year off and vice versa, much fairer I think. I think we'll have to do something in January but it won't be quite the same but I did know before I started this job that Christmas/Easter etc working was the norm and it is necessary so can't moan too much.

I've started to say no to Christmas with the in laws but I can't say that I don't dread the guilt every year. We have my parents here for Christmas dinner every year otherwise they'd be alone and my husband is perfectly happy with that but MIL spends Christmas with SIL and her family so isn't alone but just wants her whole family together. It wasn't so bad before she moved away as we could have a few hours there and then go home and carry on with our Christmas but now they all live 150 miles away so it means a long day there and back or an overnight stay which just prolongs the agony. DH usually goes for a couple of days inbetween Christmas and New Year with youngest DS, I've been using older DS needing to stay home for his part time job and the dog as excuses to stay at home.

Christmas to me just signifys the " shopping season". It's nice that we get some days off work and my mil makes a lovely Xmas dinner and we have a nice chin wag . But I think Christmas has lost its meaning now the shops have taken over .

It's such a shame that for so many Christmas is just stress and unhappiness. In my case, it's all within my own control, just letting go of some old family traditions, which I'm doing a bit at a time. Most of the family really couldn't care less about them or would be willing to take them over, it's just me and that damned need for 'Christmas perfection'. For others on this thread it's a much bigger problem since they'd get a ration of shit from other family members.

So, just for the heck, here's my perfect Christmas; instead of gifts my family all pool our money and go to Disneyland or to Yellowstone for a week. We eat Christmas dinner in a restaurant. We enjoy each other's company whilst hotel staff does all the cooking and cleaning.

My first child was stillborn at Christmas and since then I have never liked it. I can manage the day itself but all the stuff leading up to it makes me feel ill.

How awful for you, honkinghaddock.

Wow, that escalated quickly!
The reason I say I have a duty is because my mother is especially intense and very much calls the tune (which I have always jumped to!) though accepts that we split Christmases between our parents! My sister is much better than me at telling her what is the what probably because she's just as bossy!
I will do nights and sleep in the day if I can, problem solved!
Next year or the year after DP and I have agreed to have a Christmas just the two of us. Things have been hard as for the last two years we have been long distance as he has been working in Scotland and I have been working in Oxford (been together 5 years) but he has secured a job in London so all is well again!
And yes, his parents did chuck out his bed