Mum has announced its time for me to host Christmas.

[torroloco]

Apparently she has had enough and she "goes to all that effort just for us to fuck off on Boxing day". Both me, my brother and my Dad work- Dad and brother are working boxing day, I go back to work on the 27th but as I have a 3hr trip to get home I will be leaving early boxing day so i have time to get home and pack as im off on holiday with the family I work for.

Also, apparently because im 27 now I can host. The plan according to her is for the 3 of them to drive to mine in the morning and leave after Xmas dinner. To a tiny 1 bedroom flat with broken central heating (i highly doubt my LL will pull his finger out to get it sorted in time) and a tiny, unreliable oven.

WIBU to go and celebrate Xmas with them when im off for 3 days just before and then spend Xmas day alone eating shit and watching boxsets ?

I love my mother dearly but im starting to think shes batshit crazy

Geordie and proud

Ah, must do my lottery numbers - my psychic powers are obviously working well today .

Actually I lied, I'm a polar bear. Do you know Im not really white - i have black skin and translucent fur?

I wouldn't want you to waste money on the lottery on my account . Give it to charity instead

But I'd like to say that I and all the other polar bears I know consider it a great compliment to be mistaken for a Geordie .

I'll do the lottery anyway. I need to find the money for an M and S Christmas and a new slow cooker .

Magic up that ol' MN chicken and packet of mince that feeds more than those paltry loaves and fishes Jesus encountered. Dish up sides of MN jacket spuds with chilli and lentil soup. Just get onto M&S's site and order up that C4 explosive to heat it all up.

And remember, it's Women's Duty to cook, provide meals, be feeders.

I was going to suggest a spa break, but someone beat me to it up thread.
C4 it is!

Yup, a Woman's place is in the kitchen and when she's finally had enough she then has to order her daughter to take her place.

It's the law.

Why don't you get a full Xmas dinner, slow cooker and an oven from M&S, take them all to your parents' and get your father and brother to microwave everything, whilst you and your mum have a lovely spa day?

Shame these aren't really available - you could just buy 4 and heat them in the microwave.

My entire post is completely serious, btw. Honest. 😂

The landlord must get the heating fixed promptly, that is a basic. The oven, unless it is really malfunctioning, may just be a feature you have to live with. Paying yourself to buy an oven for a rental property, for the sake of one Christmas dinner, is insane. Not to mention that yes, it would be a breach of your tenancy agreement to remove the landlord's oven and you presumably don't have space for a bigger one. Your mum can't really expect someone else to host and also to dictate that they buy an oven or host in a particular way.

I agree it sounds like something more is going on. Try to get some kind of compromise settled on for Christmas Day so that you can focus on whatever it might be that is really going on.

Nuke them one of these each

utv.ie/Entertainment/2016/12/08/This-Mornings-Christmas-dinner-in-a-mug-64091

Oh do piss off

No, why don't you?

Maybe the mum turned up unannounced as she thought the no heating was a made up excuse to avoid hosting and was hoping to catch op out basking in 23 degree warmth with shorts and a t shirt on.

Bloody hell. DEFINITELY something else going on. However I suspect that OP is the only one who is actually making an effort to get to the bottom of it!

Gotta love the generation who were raised to never ever articulately spell out what was bothering them - many have overcome this handicap but it still lingers in everyone else

LaContessa coming from a family of gobby Irish matriarchs , I was bemused to see my Mil saying everything was "Fine" whilst sporting what can only be described as a cats bum face.

Both my mum and MIL were/are cat's bum people chipping - it has provided me with excellent basic training in ignoring

Only when I've had my own kids and I'm running my own household have I realised how much work my mum did. I was a teen when she died but I wish I could repay somehow all those years she slogged over the cooker and cleaned to make things special. My own friends do things to treat their mums now. The OP is just like her brother and dad. I really feel sorry for the mum. She's finally broken and because the OP doesn't live with her, she's reaching out. Poor mum. Useless husband, son and daughter.

I obviously need to take lessons, as I too have followed my DM down the path of being the "megaphone of truth".

I do think the Irish accent softens any real bollocking though. Being told you're a fecking ejit, isn't really that insulting when coming from Aunty Anne, a small birdlike woman who likes a fag and a sherry and will also fight your corner with equal gusto!

Wow, her daughter is 'useless' even though she does the stuffing, pigs in blankets, wine and pud? She's got a job that allowed her to move out of the home, supports herself, I wouldn't consider my daughter who does that 'useless' all because of a fucking roast.

I think the important word is Daughter.

If you're a woman you are destined to take your mother's place in the kitchen according to some on this thread.

Exactly, Chipped. And apparently, we're all in possession of Molly Weasley's wand and can magic up vast quantities of food with a flick or two.

Depicting the op as useless is overtly untrue. She's moved out of home and is supporting herself alone, plus she's offered to do the cooking for Christmas. None of this can be said of her brother, who is apparently just as capable......

YANBU to not want to host at less than 2 weeks notice, but I'd do it for my mum. Similar circs to you...I'm your age and live in a small flat. Have always gone to mum's. If she wanted a break (not that she'd need one as all adults staying at mum's over Christmas will cook at some point) I wouldn't bat an eyelid, I'd just make it happen. Am a bit confused with the talk of oven sizes though. Christmas dinner can easily be done on a 4 ring hob and a small oven. Even more easily if there's also a microwave. We do it at mum's every year. I'm doing the starter, DM and StepDF are doing the main and we'll probably have a pre-made dessert as the trifle I made last year ended up being massively alcoholic

A couple of things stood out to me reading your posts. One of the following absolutely must be true:

• Despite you saying she loves hosting Christmas, she obviously doesn't if she's so adamant that she won't do it this year. Or she did but you've all changed that by choosing to do nothing because 'she likes it so much'.

• You've massively taken what she does each year for granted and have overestimated your own contribution. It's been getting to her for years and she's finally decided to make it known.

• There's something at home that she very specifically doesn't want you to see. She came to you unexpected. You could have been out. It's a 6 hour round trip. Whatever it is is bad enough that she'd buy you a new oven rather than let you come home.

I really don't think there's anything bad at home - the DF and the DB are there, so it's not exactly like she can keep something from the rest of the family.

I think this is a tantrum, pure and simple, because you're not going to be there on Boxing Day as usual.

Could she be jealous of you, op? You moved away to an exciting new place (well, relative to home anyway!), you have a new job, you have a space to yourself and relative autonomy. She feels like you're having a grand old time while she feels bored and sad and misses you, then gets angry at you for not overtly missing them.

And THEN (from her POV) you're going to swan in at Christmas, stay briefly expecting to be fed/watered, then bugger off back to your fun life. She can't cope with that thought; hence the demand that you step into her shoes and effectively swap roles for the day.

I'm basically modelling your mother on my mother but you get the gist my mum would make demands like this, but we all knew that whatever we did would never be enough because basically she was just unhappy with her life. Even when we complied, it wasn't enough for her for some spurious reason; she got no happiness from the demands and neither did we.

It's the morning flit to your house that makes me think she desperately misses you but also resents you for having a new fun life she isn't in. My mum would do similar. It's a tricky one to navigate.

My advice would be to hold firm and refuse to host, but maybe make a bit of a fuss of her if you can and make up some stories about how you miss her cooking/company/something. I used to deliberately make up critical stories about people I knew in my new life; my mother's face lit up to hear me criticise people, because that way she 'knew' I didn't like them better than I liked her..... it was pretty sad really

So yeah, that's my armchair diagnosis of your mum. Any of it ring at all true?