To not want dh to go to on midnight mass this year?

[Jellybellyqueen]

Dh goes to a church group once a week, church on sunday, and on special celebrations. He pretty much always goes to midnight mass on xmas eve, and also wants to go on xmas day, which we are spending at my parents this year. None of the (primary aged) dc are interested in going, nor am i, as he's the only religious one in the house. We've been as a family before, dc bored and me trying to keep them quiet, so im not doing it again.
Im also sick of staying in on my own wrapping presents on xmas eve. AIBU to ask him to give it a miss this once?

YABVU to expect someone who is religious to give up participating in a major religious event just so you can wrap presents for the event. I say that as a muslim.

Priorities need to be looked at, ie yours. Yes he should participate in present wrapping but as everyone has suggested do it earlier.

Of course YABU.

If you choose to tolerate religion in your home, you can't interfere in his participation in the second most important celebration in the calendar of his religion. It's just plain unreasonable. If he was using his religion as a justification for, say, violent sex then you'd have a point but attendance at midnight mass is, I think, a sufficiently conventional part of Christian worship to be beyond suspicion and therefore to occasion the respect of a partner.

If however, this is the beginning of a discussion as to how your children's other parent can sensibly believe in this stuff, perhaps it can wait until after Christmas!

abandoned?

I must have misread the OP. I thought he was using a couple of hours after kids had gone to bed, to go to church.

You wrap a few presents, leave some for him to do when he gets in if you are adamant you cannot wrap before 11pm on Christmas Eve.

Christmas eve mass sounds fine. Christmas day when you will all be with family sounds less fine. Seriously wrap what you can earlier. Some of it must be able to be done earlier. Maybe do all the wrapping together the night before them add the crushable boys while he is at mass so it doesn't take so long. Surely gifts in paper don't take any more space minus their bows?

Yes, remind him what Christmas is all about! It's once a year and he is being totally selfish to leave his family on Present Wrapping Day and Present Opening Day. I wonder how anyone finds time to go to church over Christmas when there are gifts to be sorted.

The midnight service is a beautiful and meaningful one (practising Christian here and I would've to be very ill to miss the midnight service) - and it sounds as though he usually goes to it without you, which is fair enough. We are welcoming the Saviour of the world, and tbh it is one of the most moving and truly meaningful services there is. Even people who don't go to church at any other time of year will attend at Christmas.

However, speaking personally, I don't go to both midnight mass and the Christmas Day service; just one or the other - to my mind Jesus is about loving and sharing, and we can (and should) make our everyday acts, acts of worship, including wrapping presents, our Christmas meal, and our time with the family. Worship should depart of our everyday life - not something separate from it. Perhaps you could suggest decorating the table with candles etc and taking a moment before your meal to remember Jesus' birth, and during the meal to ask what the children think that Jesus would have had for a Christmas meal (Christmas falls at Hannukah in the Jewish calendar).

Have you asked if he would consider taking the children to a crib service (as a PPsuggested) and then going midnight mass on his own, and having Christmas Day as a family day. I'm sure that God would approve. Faith and worship are not just a bum on a pew - they are living as Christ would every moment of our lives. Crib services are not boring, and the midnight service is beautiful and moving and involving. However I can understand your children not wanting be at church "all day" at Christmas.

Can you not wrap the presents before Christmas eve? (What denomination is your DH btw? Just wondering)

This wasn't the case when you met/got married? Then YANBU.

I wonder how anyone finds time to go to church over Christmas when there are gifts to be sorted.

And i wonder how people find time to sort gifts when there is a religious service to offer worship in!

But PPs' are right, OP - it it time to be together and give thanks for all the gifts God has blessed us with - and that includes each other, and if we are lucky, a warm home and food on our table.

I think a pps suggestion of wrapping earlier but leaving off bows etc is a good one. Then you can put bows on while he's at mass.

If it's a wider issue of you feeling like he's not pulling his weight or prioritising you, you should discuss that with him. Don't leave it to fester which might result in a huge row on Christmas Eve when he gets home. That wouldn't be good.

DH is Catholic ( but not a serious one), I am a non-believer.
A few times when we've spent Christmas with his parents I've gone to mass on Christmas Eve with the family. It bored me fartless. I now refuse to go. I think this year the kids will refuse too, and that's fine by me.
Have your religion but don't expect me to agree or comply.

This wasn't the case when you met/got married? Then YANBU.

How so?

People are allowed to form new interests within the marriage. They aren't required to remain in a state of suspended animation from the time they put a ring on it unto death.

If OP is so bothered by her husband "abandoning" her by going to midnight mass/xmas day mass at ** Christmas time, she has the option of leaving the marriage.

Personally, I'd be more exercised about the fact that he sounds like a lazy ass who leaves the boring bits to her.

He goes out at 11 pm. So what if the presents get squashed. They’ve been in Santa’s sack. Find a better hiding place for the gifts, eg stash them at your in laws and ask him to pick them up after mass or hide them in the car for one night. You’ve created a rod for your own back having Santa deliver all the presents. With dd it’s just the stocking.

As a Pp said, your kids belief in Santa doesn’t trump your dhs belief in the birth of Christ / god etc.

It seems like it is a wider issue of him not contributing. Why can't he buy some of the presents or organise some of the wrapping another day?

I don't think its reasonable to expect him to miss mass as he's religious but it definitely is reasonable to expect him to contribute more overall

Of course YABU. Christmas is about the birth of Christ and celebrating that. Father Christmas and stockings etc isn’t part of the true meaning of Christmas.

Either wrap earlier, tell your children Father Christmas isn’t real or just get on with it in your own.

Sit your dh and kids down and explain the fictional nature of JC and SC ... This will result in lots of free time for everyone at Christmas.

If he did his fair share in the huge list of errands you wrote earlier, I'm pretty sure you would feel fine having a few hours alone wrapping, watching your choice of movies etc. If there are 1.5 days each weekend, and 4 weekday evenings free, every week til Christmas eve, why can't you both undertake other things then?

Meanwhile, I've never understood the ridiculousness that is giving Father Christmas all the kudos for all the presents. How do kids feel when they find he's not real? Why would you nk want your children to realise you gave them things that made then happy? I don't really understand any of your ideas, plans, or expectations.. but I do sympathise with suddenly having a devout person in the house. Must be a tough thing to absorb into your lives.

This wasn't the case when you met/got married? Then YANBU.

I imagine this thread would be going a different way if the OP said her husband had been a Christian and they worshipped together and was she BU for wanting him to go to church with her and he wanted to stay at home and wrap presents!

*How so?

People are allowed to form new interests within the marriage. They aren't required to remain in a state of suspended animation from the time they put a ring on it unto death.*

And OP isn't under any obligation to change her thoughts or thinking because her DH has has a change of belief.

YABU. I begin wrapping presents on 1st December, most of the time I'm free. I say that as an atheist. (I loathe church) My husband's religion is football, and I lose him, home or away, on Boxing Day, all day, to go to a match. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. I also lose him on other bank holidays. Sometimes entire weekends. Meh. It makes him happy.

I imagine this thread would be going a different way if the OP said her husband had been a Christian and they worshipped together and was she BU for wanting him to go to church with her and he wanted to stay at home and wrap presents!

Not from me.

And OP isn't under any obligation to change her thoughts or thinking because her DH has has a change of belief.

Which is why I said divorce is always an option if she really can't tolerate him pootling off to celebrate midnight mass on the eve of a crucial religious event.

I imagine this thread would be going a different way if the OP said her husband had been a Christian and they worshipped together and was she BU for wanting him to go to church with her and he wanted to stay at home and wrap presents!

The replies would be different because it's a completely different situation.

He only needs to go to Mass once, and you can wrap presents another day.

YANBU to ask him to go only once.
But also plan wrapping in advance. Or leave it all to him. He could wrap the presents after returning from Mass if he insists or some days before.

I am not a christian but I would never expect someone especially someone I loved to miss out on an important religious holiday just because I want to wrap presents. I really don't see why you cannot wrap them earlier? My kids presents go on the top of our wardrobe as we normally have friends or family over for a few hours on christmas eve and once the kids are in bed, I like to relax with a glass of wine and watch a movie because I know how excited and busy we will be on christmas day. YABU.

Btw, even if the OP tells the children there is no Santa, surely they shouldn't be seeing the presents before receiving them. They need to be wrapped somehow, away from children's eyes.