To expect that grandparents should be included in Christmas?

[Mishaps]

If you take yourself on to Gransnet you will find a thread that will illustrate to everyone here how deeply hurt some grandparents are at not being included in the family Christmas. There are women there who have been the lynchpin in creating wonderful family Christmases for their children over decades and who will be on their own on the day.

I know that some families have rifts in them and not all parents make a good job of their role, but might this not be a time to heal some wounds and act out of kindness?

Lots of grandparents say they do not mind being left out, but please bear in mind that sometimes they just do not want to admit out loud how hurt and lonely they feel.

There will be many grandparents for whom a lonely Christmas day will bring tears.

Christmas just isn't that big a deal for some people.

It only has to be a big load of angst and drama if you make it.

There seems to be a plethora of these threads about at the moment (maybe there isn't but it sure as hell feels that way).

I reckon they are mainly started by essentially well meaning but somewhat naive folk who have never experienced how truly horrible and foul some people in families can be to each other. They're imagining a scenario with a rosy-cheeked, twinkly eyed Granny who's been left alone by her horrible, selfish children who are wallowing in unfettered materialism while she sobs into her solo mince pie and wonders what she's done wrong.

I acknowledge that this is a massive generalisation, but in the UK (maybe other countries have this to, I don't know) we have this simultaneously patronising and sentimental view of "the elderly" which really comes to the fore at this time of year.

It's evolved into this big and oh-so-significant event , at which all families must be lovely to each other and spend time together whether they want to or not (or else) because CHRISTMAS.

Hygge

Yep, flip, and the John Lewis advert exacerbates the situation.

My mother will be on her own this Christmas. She's welcome to come here, but she won't. She 'likes to have Christmas in her own house', which translates as 'my house, my christmas, my terms, and heaven help anyone who expresses an opinion even if it's just to say they don't like sprouts'. So she bitch and moan to all and sundry about how lonely she'll be and how her children exclude her when she's actually choosing to exclude herself.

Hygge what an awful lot of terrible things to have gone through. They sound horrible. You are nothing like them,

OP you say that many of the posters on Gransnet have been lynchpins and organised amazing Christmases for their children. Lets assume that is correct - they've had their turn just like their mothers before them. Its time for the new family to make their traditions and do as they please. It won't be my DCs responsibility to 'make' my future Christmasses.

Hygge - your story is just appalling. I hope it makes some judgemental people pause for thought , when they jump to conclusions about why some " poor grandparents " are alone at Christmas .

I really hope I'll have a close and loving relationship with my kids when they are adults but a big part of that will be them living their own lives.

If they all want to move to Canada, New Zealand and Australia respectively, I'm happy. Why? Because they are happy. Simple.

Hygge I didn't see your post before I went off on a mini- rant.

I think I've read about your PIL before. They are truly vile people.

I think it is often complicated but some of the selfish/self-obsessed posts I've seen on here (not this thread) are just depressing, I really hope those who exclude their parents (for no good reason) realise that they are teaching their children to do the same in the future

Yes flip I agree.

I think the JL advert is awful and mostly to the horid and the good old people alone, because they still will be, that ad will do nothing about that, and it makes more painful.

silly JL

Why bother posting this? The guilt and pressure some parents put on their adult children is awful. Christmas is not the be all and end all. If you aren't able to enjoy yourself by your own means and/or have a normal conversation about plans that take into account other people's views and needs, then you have failed as an adult. You should not be living life through your grown up children.

There seems to be a plethora of these threads about at the moment (maybe there isn't but it sure as hell feels that way)

On both sides tbf.

There are quite a few threads around where people do get on with their families but going to be on their own as they want it to just be 'nuclear family'.

IMO in ^ circumstances there is no reason to leave people on their own.

I'd quite happily give a nice lonely old person Christmas Day with us. Mil has announced we have put her in an awkward position as after having her every year for 16 years we booked Christmas lunch out this year for us all and her new boyfriends daughter has invited her there. I am pig sick and would quite like to rescind her invitation. I'll let you count on the toes of one hand how many times she's invited us there. So it looks like I have a space for dinner.

FFS

Hygge,

You should not be living life through your grown up children.

No you shouldn't. However neither should grown up children be so self centred as to leave people on their own when there are no issues.

If only life were that simple op.

Yes there are some toxic selfish elderly people.

There are also toxic selfish younger people.

Thank you everyone, you've been very kind.

PILS were like that day after day, not just at Christmas, but it brings out the worst in them for some reason.

And the main reason why I won't see them now is to protect DS. I'm not having them spoil his childhood with their behaviour, or ruin even just one day of it with their tears and tantrums and drama.

They still, even now, try to contact us and find a way back in. MIL will tell anybody who will listen to her how much she loves us, loves me, but in private or over the phone she will be calling me names, calls me a bitch, tells me she wants DH to divorce me. Then denies it all to everyone else.

DS doesn't know who they are, but he's getting old enough to realise that something is going on when they get in touch. He calls them "the bad people" and says they frighten him. We've done our best to keep the worst of it from him but when they turn up outside our house trying to get DH to go out and speak to them we can't really hide that. We do our best to reassure him about them, but he's too young to have it all explained to him and they are their own worst enemies when it comes to things like this. He's not a stupid boy. I can't see that he will ever want a relationship with them either when he grows up a bit, because of the little he has seen and heard of the way they behave now.

I do feel sorry for people who are alone and lonely, but I try not to judge their families because we just don't know what's happened in the past.

The majority of grandparents that spend Christmas on their own probably don't get on well with their adult children, whatever they say on gransnet. I don't believe that many adult children would leave their parents on their own if they truely had a good relationship with them.

Yes, I too hate the JL advert. Makes my teeth itch.

Shut I'd agree, in those circumstances, it's a shame. But only if people are left alone and don't want to be.

Some folk are quite happy on their tod, having Christmas their own way, spending it with friends, heading abroad etc.

My mother is a bloody nightmare at Christmas, gets really wound up and stressed, usually she fights with Dad who gets so drunk that he falls over, is sick or sleeps in his bed for most of the day.
Seriously, I've served my time and I've had too many utterly horrible Christmas's, I love my parents but Christmas with them is hell - happy to visit for New Year which is much more civilised. [santa]

Oh fuck off
Another tread designed to make those of us who don't live out some chocolate box idyll to feel even more shit