I cant understand all these grandparents commandeering what happens on Christmas day...?

[ssd]

now I know this is a thread about a thread, well several threads actually

I just cant understand the pressure some grandparents put their grown up children under on Christmas day, expecting them to drag young kids around in the car for hours to visit them

sure, visit if you are nearby, but if not why not let the young family have a nice day with their kids and see them after/before the day, or else drive the distance yourself, stay an hour and drive home, leaving them in peace!!

whats happened to grandparents, are they all selfish buggers these days, or only on MN?

disclaimer: both mine and dh's parents are dead and as much as I'd give my eye teeth for a grandparent here, I know if they were still alive they wouldnt be so selfish!

In fairness though, a lot of these whinging grandparents have a spouse and other visitors. The majority are not isolated.

I agree absolutely, that folk shouldn't spend the duration of Christmas Day alone unless they opt to. Invitations should be extended in those cases, or a visit of at least a few hours made.

But all this nonsense about the other grandparents getting 3 hours instead of 2.5 is puerile snd really shouldn't be pandered to.

patrician - the initial post though is more about the daughter not being flexible or willing to compromise. she doesn't want to travel to GP's and only wants them to visit for a couple of hours. to me, she is being selfish especially when you think of all the GP's have done for their kids over the years

When we had children we decided to stay at home for Christmas Day. My mum lives 150 miles away, and she comes to us every other year. We also have to factor in DH's grown up children - we can't fit everyone in so they can't all come at the same time. His children alternate with their mum.

We see DHs parents on Boxing Day usually, though there's been a few times we've gone on Christmas morning. They usually have Christmas with SIL or BIL.

No one has ever made a fuss, no one has ever cried or had a tantrum.

Why my kids are older they can decide for themselves. And if they don't come to me I will scream and wail - I'm learning how to be MIL from all these MN threads!

I'm getting sick of it now

We always had to spend xmas with PIL as they'd have been alone otherwise. I have no parents. PIL lived over 100 miles away.

When FIL died, dh had to go to MIL's so that she wasn't alone. I'm a nurse and have to work some parts of xmas, so dh would take ds to his mum's and I'd be left alone when I wasn't at work

His sister lives abroad, but pleases herself as to where her and her family spend xmas. It's just assumed that we'll accommodate MIL, even if it means I don't see my kids.

This has been going on for 15 years.

I would never not spend Christmas with my mum and siblings to be honest. Wouldn't even occur to me to not to go them .

My PIL are quite happy being at home on their own but I come from a massive extended family so would feel completely bizarre to me spending christmas day with just DP and DS.

hidden, would MIL be willing to come to you? That way she wouldn't be alone at Christmas but you wouldn't be coming home to an empty house after your shift?

D'you know what, my Dad died when I was 25 Mum is now remarried and has emigrated, I have no Grandparents or siblings.
I'm divorced with one dd
Be grateful for what you have you never know what's around the corner

I don't think this is about selfish grandparents, I think its about selfish children, will having guests or travelling to others really hurt that much.

Now there is no way I would spend 4 hours Christmas Day in the car - I would either have everyone stay with me or we would go and stay with them on Christmas night.

I honestly do not get the whole nuclear family Christmas thing, it seems so miserable and lacking in what the spirit of Christmas is all about.

dreamingofsun think you mean a different thread as the OP on this one makes it clear both her parents and her ILs are dead.

My parents are fine not seeing us IL wanted us to fit round them more to show off than joy of having us.

They behaved so badly to me - I was already in their bad books so it was easy to say no. That happened when I had young baby but we supposed to travel in awful weather walk, bus, 3 trains and long walk with cases day before they back to switch their heating on and fill their larder for Christmas visits - I got phone calls from their friends round corner calling me a bitch for saying no we'll wait till they are back before going over. I don't want to spend most of a day travelling with young baby to get to a cold house with no food for a Christmas visit. That was my sod it moment.

What gets me though is they went away to avoid their own family when they had young DC and now choose to spend it with couple friends not the elderly parent or the lone sibling they have round the corner from them - most often country away from us and people DH doesn't know well. Yet I still get grief - when when most yearly events ended up being taken over by them.

We have friends who are envious - whose DC spend most of Christmas in cars in obligated visits. It's the one time of year we aren't running round and can focus on them.

I do find people who do big extended family Christmases can be very judgemental when they find out we are by ourselves for Christmas. Even when they no nothing about our family or are completely stressed out themselves.

The GP aren't alone at the minute - when they changes I expect we'll have them over. At the minute it's means Christmas is something we look forward to and a point we can stop and enjoy rather than run round keeping everyone else happy.

"Now there is no way I would spend 4 hours Christmas Day in the car - I would either have everyone stay with me or we would go and stay with them on Christmas night"

So how do you achieve this when one set of GP's refuse to leave their own home at Christmas and you also have to consider another set of GP's who live on the other side of the country. What if you can't host both sets of GP's because you live in a tiny flat? What if your parents and DH's parents can't stand one another? In these scenarios (and many others) one set of GP's will inevitably lose out. Hence, people spend 4 hours in the car on Christmas day trying to keep things fair.

I can see how it would be difficult to understand if you've got a relatively easy going family who are willing to be a bit flexible but not everyone does. I don't think everyone who craves a small, quiet Christmas with just their partner and DC's is necessarily selfish or lazy. It may be that they want to have the day to themselves because for years and years they've spent Christmas rushing from one set of relatives to another in a bid to keep everyone happy and still coming up short.

When I was a kid, we spent Christmas at my paternal grandparents house (apart from one, when I was three, which was spent at my maternal grandparents - never to be repeated, and to this day, I still don't know why, although I'm told that my mother's ex-fiance turned up "unexpectedly"). The only other exception was when I was 6. There had been an argument between my mother and her mother-in-law, I think (I sort of recall not being allowed to see her when she brought our gifts around on Christmas Eve, and sitting on the stairs, watching through the bannisters as she placed them under the tree)... and that was it: we were spending Christmas "at home".

It was actually spent in the local hospital, because I became horrendously ill due to the sheer stress of it all.

After that, my grandmother insisted that every Christmas was spent at hers - because, as she admitted to me years later, she didn't ever want me to have to deal with my parents at the most stressful time of the year, by myself, again (my brothers are a lot older than me, and my parents should never have had me... I was the blu-tack baby, so to speak, and have endured anxiety issues since birth, pretty much, because I've always known that I wasn't wanted!).

Now, my children and I spend Christmas with my parents - because no one else will. Following an incident with my maternal grandmother telling my DS that Santa wasn't real, when he was 3 years old and very excitedly telling his sister about the gifts he'd received, they know that I will collect my children and walk at the slightest sign of stress, or passive aggressive behaviour. But my brothers won't have anything to do with them. I feel obligated (being the youngest and the only girl). Would I like to have Christmas in my own home? Yes. So would my children. And one day... we will. I've already told them both that when they have children, I don't expect them to trek out to see me at Christmas. Of course, it'll be nice if they choose to do so... and they'll be welcomed with open arms. But I don't expect them to. Since moving out, though, I've not spent one Christmas in my own home. Because of obligation and because I know that my brothers won't have our parents.

Guilt is, after all, the "gift" that keeps on giving...

Some of you are being a bit harsh - calling 'selfishness'. I think if you're a parent of small children, then they become your priority at Christmas. They're only small for a short time and they don't get any choice about how or where to spend Christmas or who to spend it with. So I think it's right that their needs are considered first.

After that, I think their parents have to juggle everyone else as best they possibly can. Bearing in mind that there will often be two sets of grandparents, possibly step grandparents, many people will have ex partners and step families of their own. Parents often live a distance away from their extended families and most will have two work schedules to juggle.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people who aren't working or don't have small children or have a range of options for who they could spend Christmas with, to try and be flexible. If I was being forced to choose between making a nice Christmas for my DCs or pleasing my mother - I would choose my DCs and provide an option for her that suited us. And I don't think that's selfish.

But my mother is lovely. She will do whatever it takes to be with her GC on Christmas Day.

"Some of you are being a bit harsh - calling 'selfishness'. I think if you're a parent of small children, then they become your priority at Christmas. They're only small for a short time and they don't get any choice about how or where to spend Christmas or who to spend it with. So I think it's right that their needs are considered first."

I don't agree. I think everyone should be considered and the best arrangements made. For instance, leaving an elderly parent alone because your children want to stay at home with their new toys is prioritising your children in a way that is quite selfish, because it involves excluding a loving grandparent.

This is awful. So many people feeling they have to put their children or even, heaven forbid, themselves down the pecking order in order to mollify grandparents and in-laws. I'm fortunate in a roundabout way that I have none of the aforementioned and am free to please myself on Christmas Day. I feel very strongly that CD is one day of the year one should do exactly as one wishes and nor what someone else expects. Bollocks to it all. Is all the stress and aggro worth it just because it's Christmas.

I feel for those of you who have to deal with this situation.

I don't think it's odd, gps inviting others to visit them. They tend to be the hub of the family wheel, until the time comes when they can no longer host and it shifts to the next generation.

I think this sort of assumption is the crux of the problem - a tendency on the part of (some) gps to see the 'wheel' of their(!) family as a vertical structure, one generation leading naturally on to another, and a complete failure to acknowledge that their family wheel overlaps with other families' wheels, and that many people are therefore spokes in more than one wheel.

I am utterly blown away by how many parents or PILs seem to indulge in the most extreme of manipulative, melodramatic behaviour over Christmas, and also by how many adult children seem to let them get away with it. I don't think it's just on MN - I know people in RL who behave like this. Also very bemused by the wide range of blanket statements about Christmas that seem to have passed into orthodoxy: Christmas is for children, Christmas is all about family, no one should be alone at Christmas, etc etc. The truth is, Christmas is for Christians.

Oh and for TheExMotherInLaw.

"This is awful. So many people feeling they have to put their children or even, heaven forbid, themselves down the pecking order in order to mollify grandparents and in-laws"

It's not about a pecking order, and that kind of thinking often lies at the root of so much of the selfishness.

Oh, and I agree with MrsLupo. Parents also need to understand that when their child marries they also become a part of their spouses family, that grandchildren have two sets of grandparents etc and that will play a big part in how Christmas is celebrated.

It's really about having a broad and generous definition of family and an understanding of yourself as a member of a family or connected to other families, and not as some kind of self contained little island.

I'd love to have seen Mary's Christmas AIBU - you know, the one who was there at the start.

Just her, her little unit, and the various shepherds, Angels, animals and wise men who dared to disturb.

I stopped partaking in Christmas over twenty years ago BECAUSE of the behaviour of certain family members. Sometimes family for the sake of family creates more friction and upset than it's worth. I speak from experience and when it shits all over what is supposed to be a pleasant time of year, walking away is a no-brainer. Or at least it is for those who can get away with it.

Unless there's a significant change in my personal circumstances I don't expect to ever participate in Christmas ever again. I do like the Carols from Kings on Christmas Eve though .

drizzle

I think it's important for young couples not to establish a Christmas routine eg visiting parents on alternate christmasses, because it's breaking the routine that causes upset and resentment.

DieRosen - I think children should be considered first - not to the exclusion of everybody else.

Broad brush condemnations and emotive strawmen ("leaving an elderly parent alone so that children can play with toys" - who said they were doing that?) are really unhelpful for people who are trying to juggle some very complex situations.

That was given as an example, Treats, one I have sometimes seen on here. It's not a strawman at all.

And I don't think anyone has an automatic right to be considered 'first'. It all depends on the bigger picture.