This is not my idea of a 10k holiday !

[Itwillgeteasieripromise]

Ex pats, heading home for Christmas after a tough year, not taken any leave really in 12 months and just finished an ivf cycle with one in the freezer for when we get back. We need a rest, DH and I are shattered.
I love my family dearly, but dear god the demands !!! Every day I'm literally sent a list of 'events' to attend, including helping my sister with her kids while she has to work late. Coming home is expensive, all
you seem to do is be expected to come to people because they are so busy with Christmas. Everyday day I'm literally sent a new invite, if it's not a birthday party, it's a school play ! It doesn't help that DH and I are from opposite ends of the country (and his family think I'm a spoiled bitch) If you think of what a holiday would look like if you spend 10k I can promise you, I wouldn't be rushing around like a headless chicken, spending it sat in people's living rooms seeing their kids and being an unpaid babysitter for family ! (Rant over) I am excited honestly, but it almost feels like an ex pat tax that you have to pay every couple of years .....

Missingsreetlife that is it exactly. I tried the early visit thing and then got guilted into more. Late, made to feel bad.

I'm looking to book my next flight soon.

OP the problem is that you are comparing it to a holiday. It IS an expat tax!! If you don’t want to be part of your family/friends lives anymore then don’t come home. Or do- but expect them to treat you like they would if you had never left. Your sis probably thinks it would be a nice opportunity for you to bond with your niece/nephews that you don’t ordinarily get and play the role of Auntie that you might have had had you stayed. If you don’t want to do this as you’re not coming at the best of time for you emotionally to deal with other people’s chiksren (totally understandable) then just be open. Don’t passively aggressively seethe.
This is coming from someone whom both best friends have moved overseas (different locations) and they just a lot in whenever they come back (about once a year - both are long haul). One friend I provide a significant amount of childcare for, both come and stay with me. Sometimes it’s not 100% convenient but we all understand it’s the nature of a long-distance relationship?
I get that at the moment it’s seeming to take a large chunk of your time, energy, emotion and finances but it’s what you signed up for when you moved if you had roots here. I hope none of this has sounded harsh, just being direct.
You’ll end up having a lovely time, I’m sure x

Totally get it. It’s never a holiday! In the last six years I’ve had one Christmas of living in the UK. It was so nice and relaxed. You get to go to stuff but are able to disappear back home when you need to. Just like everyone else does and have a break from family!! You also don’t need to rush around all over the country trying to fit in seeing everyone in the space of two weeks. Like you, our parents are 100s of miles apart making for long car journeys.

We try and stick to quite a strict schedule of days out of our own choosing in between all the gatherings with family and friends (we have three very young children). I still invite family to everything we do - sometimes they come, sometimes not.

This year we did look into renting somewhere to stay so that we could disappear and do our own thing but it was going to be so expensive we couldn’t justify it on top of flights, car hire and gifts. And yes I fully appreciate our families putting us up for free!

When there was just the two of us we did rent somewhere for New Years for about four days and had the most amazing time - probably one of the best and most relaxing holidays we’ve had and I 100% recommend doing this!

one solution some people find helpful is to rent a place themselves in order to have privacy, and then to throw a dinner for everyone at theirs, and then to limit going to see others to special engagements. Works well and shouldn't offend anyone. If tire staying w family, you have to put up w their demands though ; )

Take it from an ex-expat who recently moved home, being w family is often stressful and annoying and in fact even more so when you see them more often than when you live abroad and have stored up patience it's just the reality of most families, but if you still want to have a relatively close relationship to them, you just gotta put up w it, same for ex-pats and non-expats really ; ) or you can choose to go home less often and accept the inevitable disconnect. It take the rent Your own place option and thus limit interaction a bit. Good luck, hope you'll have a lovely Christmas, you're super lucky to have family, be able to spend 10k and live aboard

@Babysnark

I understand exactly what you're saying.

The issue is that when people visit family when living in the UK, this is what it is like. It does not change because you now live abroad. It is still visiting family, not a holiday.

It's the price of being an expat. My dh's family were in one country, mine in another and we lived in a third - all in different continents! You're not on holiday, you're visiting family. If you want to go on holiday, you need to go somwhere else!

Totally understand you OP and I'm definitely a bit at some of the snide and harsh comments you are getting from people who have clearly never lived abroad for any length of time.

Myself and DH are going home for Christmas this year for the first time in 10 years. We are both v low contact with his (quite frankly) dysfunctional af family, so the majority of time will be spent with mine. We've made it very clear that apart from a dinner/night out with friends and a family wedding, we are staying put at my parents place and any relatives who wish to can visit us there.

I think the only way to survive trips home is to be completely transparent about what and who you are going to visit and to rigidly stick to those plans.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas at home (I sympathise with wanting a hug from your DM, I am in dire need of one too!) and the very best of luck on your IVF journey

I'm not sure that I would put myself through travelling and a busy visiting schedule whilst going through IVF - it must be exhausting.
My biological Mum lives abroad, not in Australia, but about half way there.When she visits the UK, about once every 3 or 4 years, I don't get much of her time. Last visit I saw her for 3 hours. She doesn't have a jam-packed schedule, just two other groups of people who she visits. It's a shame we're not closer, but I'm used to it now.

If you choose to live across the world this is part of the deal. I don't suppose your parents would choose to spend so many of their holidays travelling to see you but it is again part of the deal.

I also would love to know more about the 10k

They probably HAVE to fly Business class.

Eh? Did you not read previous poster responses?
Depending on where you live in the world, it will easily cost 10K to visit family in the UK over Christmas and that's economy...

Simply don’t bother anymore. What’s to enjoy about being in the UK at Christmas? It’s cold, wet, gloomy and miserable. Everyone is worn out, stressed and wishing they were somewhere warm and sunny. Utterly pointless IMO. Those that matter to you most would make the effort to visit you instead.

I’m wondering why you’ve booked the trip to come home at all if you’re moaning about having to see people. If you don’t want to see them - don’t. But you can’t blame people for inviting you to things!

As for it being an “expat tax”. Well yes, if you move abroad then you will have to spend money travelling distances to see people you love every now and then. It works the other way too. A lot of DHs family have moved abroad and our yearly annual leave is now taken up visiting them in the same ok-but-dull places, having to fit in around their schedules, hang out with their friends etc. Not really our idea of a holiday and the destinations are not places we’d visit out of choice. But we don’t begrudge it because we have to do it to see them.

Yes, ignore the snide comments OP, the expats/ex-expats totally get where you are coming from on this. You want to come home and see people, especially over Xmas, but it becomes enormously expensive, absorbs your only holiday time but yet is not a holiday but an exhausting round of trying to cram in as many people as possible because you have so few opportunities to see everyone. And while wonderful to catch up, you go home in pieces, straight back to work. It is not the same as just being in the U.K. over Xmas if you live here, at all.

I used to live very long haul and I actually began having secret trips home, where very few people knew I was in the country, just to limit the stress and exhaustion because at the end of the day you can only do so much. That’s hard because you feel guilty for leaving some people out- and if they find out you can be in trouble! - but I think you have to be firm and say ok this year we spend lots of time with certain people, next trip back we dedicate more time to others. It’s tough, it is the reality of being an expat unfortunately, it’s one of the reasons I’ve come home.

In the case of friends, like others said, you can organize one night and those who can make it can make it. Just be realistic about what you can and can’t do, don’t exhaust yourself, accept you won’t please everyone and try and schedule an actual break somewhere for the not too distant future! Good luck and have a happy Xmas!

You don't want to do it, you don't want to spend your time catching up with everybody,so don't do it! - sitting there front rooms listening to the clock ticking how bloody insulting frankly.

You've made it sound like such a chore, so just don't, spend your Christmas on your own.

I say that as someone who has done the same for many years, tiring, and worried about not being able to see everyone, but I actually enjoyed the catch up and genuinely sharing their company agai n. It sounds like you resent seeing them, so just don't.

What's the issue, are you worried they'll then get pissed off with you and not bother with you any more? It's really insulting that you don't want to see them.

If its purely because of the year you've had, which does sound exhausting and very emotional, perhaps this is the year to do something else away from everyone and explain. They will understand.

I really hope the ivf efforts come good

We love our Christmas, have a great time, yes, every one works hard doesn't get enough sleep and the weather can be crap, but that's not even noticed, we love it, have a great family time, and wouldn't anyone at our table to sour it, by not wanting to be there.

I lived abroad (other side of the planet) for about 6 years OP, and would try to come home at least once a year for a few weeks to visit family. I remember one particular evening spent at my brothers house, babysitting my (sleeping) nieces and nephews whilst a my siblings went out for the evening with friends (it was a night out for the parents of the kids' football team. I know pretty much all of them). Definitely worth paying £600 for the flight over...

People think because you're visiting 'home' it's no big deal, but actually it's costing you a lot of money, and that's coming out of your holiday budget whereas they get to spend it on a nice week at the beach!

Not personal, but a close relative has been a long term expat. Their take on holidays to mother country is that they are anything BUT relaxing. The pressure to see family and friends is so great that they have spent a large percentage of their time driving a hire car between waypoints and been expected to pick up all the bills for everyone in restaurants, because they are overpaid, taxfree expats.

I used to go home (Europe) every Christmas for the first 10-15 years I lived abroad. It took me that long to realise that it was the most stressful time waste ever. Plus very expensive! The flights were always double the price, plenty of delays due to bad weather, and when I got there, I was always running around.

Now I stay in UK. If friends and family want to visit, they are welcome, but I'm not spending all my annual leave anymore, going back to the same country over and over again. I do a short visit in the spring or autumn, and that's it.

I have lived 8 timezones away from family for last 27 yrs.
They don't exhaust me when I go back. Actually I wish I could see more of most of them.
I don't get OP. Hers is not a list of stuff I would do or how I visit my (very large extended family) when I go 'home'.
So for me what OP is saying is half lifestyle-inspired, tbh.
I don't know what her AIBU is. Yes, sometimes seeing family gets hectic & expensive.

This isn't the sole preserve of anyone travelling long haul. Anyone who has parents at a distance can feel this way. It's never a holiday.

We spent decades driving up and down the motorways in UK spending holiday time with parents who lived at opposite ends of the UK.

OP you just need to plan it better so you get time on your own and time with family. Be proactive, plan your visit, and don't just react to your family and their demands.

The thing is though it is Christmas time so there will naturally be more events on and taking a trip to visit family (albeit cost £10k) couls never be considered as a holiday could it? We have friends who moved to Australia and always used to come back at Christmas but spent the whole time rushing around, hated the dark and cold and now have finally realised that it's much more chilled to visit in our summertime.
Feel your pain though re the inlaws. MILs always think their DILs are spoilt bitches. Means that she's ultra jealous of you.

I know what you mean Op

We are abroad - come back to the UK and BIL couldn’t be bothered to come out for lunch (we were paying)

It is lovely to see people but also you can’t really say much about your life abroad as it’s “showing off”

It’s weird as you are a foreigner abroad and at “home”

Aw, OP - if you were my sister I would take a whole week off work to see you!