Christmas dinner drama

[thegreenlight]

My husband is cooking turkey Christmas dinner this year with all the trimmings. We have invited my parents and my mum said she would bring beef in gravy. I told my husband this and he was quite upset (he only really cooks at Christmas and it is kind of a big deal to him) I very gently suggested to my mum that she not bring anything and she was fine with this initially.

However, when I saw her next she said that my dad (who is in his 70s) wasn’t coming if he couldn’t eat the meat he wanted and that if he was a vegetarian we would have to cater to him and this is no different. I am now stuck in the middle and don’t know who is being more unreasonable.

My husband said that we should cancel them coming to dinner if they won’t eat what he cooks and we should just pop in to see them on Christmas day but I don’t want to drag our DDs (6 and 2) away from their presents.

My parents can be quite narcissistic and controlling and there is a bit of bad blood with my husband and them due to their previous treatment of me but they seem blissfully unaware of this. This has probably coloured DHs reaction. They do do a lot for us (my mum is looking after DD2 2 days a week until September).

I can see where DH is coming from but I don’t put as much importance on Christmas dinner as he does.

Help! I don’t know what to do. Any direct engagement between my parents and DH would cause a massive falling out as he hasn’t had the lifetime’s experience of dealing with them like I have and will just tell it as it is and that would be taken out on me. Advice please!

We always have two meats for Christmas, in fact this year as we're having buffalo and I'm unsure if everyone will like that, I'm also doing a third. All the more leftovers 😂
Tell your husband to wisen up.

If this was the other way round and a woman came on here to complain about the in laws I think the responses would be a lot different. Most people would be saying the DH needs to back you up and stand up to the IL's.

Yes @NoSauce, I have. But for DH to choose this hill to die on and ruin everyone's Chistmas is simply ridiculous. It's not unusual for people to have two meats at Christmas, so choosing to make this the thing that breaks the camel's back is simply going to make him look silly.

If he wants a confrontation with his PIL's, then do it when they do something cruel or unkind, and it's justified.
Don't ruin everyone's Christmas over a plate of beef and gravy FFS. He's adding to the OP's stress at a time of goodwill. Why do that?

So you’re ok with his PILs being in the OPs words narc and controlling? You don’t think this is the straw that broke the camels back after year of putting up with them? Watching them be abusive to his wife?

In his shoes I wouldn’t be cooking fuck all for them.

You are very deep in the FOG op. I would recommend that you do some reading and have some therapy if can afford it because your boundaries are well out of whack.

It is clear that your parents treat you and your DH like crap. This is also how they will eventually treat your children. If your DH was posting on here people would be telling him to leave you. It's not about the beef!

Ugh. Your parents are deliberately being rude. Who insists on bringing their own food, when invited over to someone else's house for dinner?? Whether or not they like turkey is beside the point, as is the fact it's christmas day.

It sounds like your husband has your back, and that's awesome. If your parents were in any way polite or cared about either your feelings or your husbands, they would have backed down.

Take them at their word, when they say they won't be able to come to your house unless there is roast beef on the menu. Cheerfully tell them that while you're sorry they won't be able to join you for lunch, but they are welcome to come over for drinks and mince pies later in the day. Your kids don't have to leave the house, your husband will know you've got his back, and you can say you are taking parents at their word (i.e., that it's all about that beef.)

This is why people should RTFT

OP - I understand you find it hard to stand up to your parents, but the thing is you don't have to. You have a DH who is prepared to. Let him call your Mum and Dad and say 'I hear our Christmas lunch doesn't suit. that's fine - why don't you pop in for a mince pie in the morning, or else a stuffing sandwich at about 6?'.

And when your Mum kicks up a fuss say 'Mum I agree with DH. All I am doing is supporting my DH just like you have been supporting hyour DH. It's all fine, just pop in and see us or else what about Boxng Day'

Any more fuss - put DH on to her. And say 'I think we should re-think and just have Christmas with the kids'. And just keep saying'we made our decision' on stuck record.

This is why people should RTFT

Yes especially to catch up with the huge drip feeds!

Not drip feeding. I mentioned their treatment of me in the OP. I have just given more details in response to what people of asking/saying.

Your husband is being pathetic.

I do believe you need to make a stand. I
Just don't think this is the right time & reason, because there's no harm in allowing them to bring the beef you'd just look really petty.

Make a New Years resolution to stop taking their shit, stand by your DH and start extracting yourself from situations where you are beholden to them.

I understand you find it hard to stand up to your parents, but the thing is you don't have to. You have a DH who is prepared to I don't agree, they are the OPs parents and she in whatever loves them, he has to respect that and back off and respect that they are hers. Let them bring the beef, let the OP deal with her parents when and if she needs to.

sorry 'in whatever way'

Not drip feeding. I mentioned their treatment of me in the OP. I have just given more details in response to what people of asking/saying

To be fair OP, the fact that has put himself on the line in your defence in the past , and been trampled on, is quite an important nuance. I think people believed the fact that they are narc : difficult but not your DH’d stance.

Even without all the other background, I would say your parents are being very rude but if this was a one-off I'd expect your dh to suck it up.

But it isn't a one-off. They sound horrible to you and I would love to know how your dh would write the post. The drunken demand for a lift, shouting at you etc etc. No wonder your dh can't stand them. I think he has massively compromised by having a woman he hardly likes mind his children 2 days a week against his better judgement. I can't blame him for wanting to enable more bad behaviour at christmas. But your update says he will compromise (unlike your parents who would rather not have dinner with their children and grandchildren if they can't get their own way about a plate of meat).

I bet your brother could also write a very illuminating post.

I think you should get over to the stately homes thread and maybe talk to someone in real life about the massive FOG in which you live. I wouldn't want to spend xmas day with these people. you want them to be something they are not - it is never going to happen.

Yes especially to catch up with the huge drip feeds!

The info is there in the OP. Some posters cottoned on from the start.

How would it work though, do you think your pils or just your Mil or FIL would be descending on DH in the kitchen at that crucial point which l'm crap at that is getting everything still hot on the plates /table at the same time and giving everything a last test/baste/stir etc then in comes PILs wanting some space in the oven and a ring on the hob and standing there stirring their gravy etc. Being controlling types l doubt they intend to hand it over to your DH to warm up as suits him whilst cooking the others meals. Them coming in the kitchen faffing and getting in the way would really piss me off if l was cooking. The evil voices would make me want to share the beef equally out half and half with the turkey, making sure FIL gets mainly turkey and a little sliver of beef and then act dim and say you thought that was the intention to have a two meat roast.

My mum used to call me and scream at me for really petty reasons with my dad shouting at me in the background until one day DH lost it and screamed down the phone at her to leave me alone. I made him apologise, he did. For me.

This is going to sound harsh. I feel very sorry for your DH after this, but more importantly, I feel shocked that you still intend to have your kids cared for two days a week by these people. Do you think it would be ok for your kids to be shouted and screamed at like this? When it happens (which it will) will you then be expecting your DH to apologise again if he objects to how his kids are treated? And will you be telling your kids they have to behave and put up with nasty shouty grandma and grandad because you don't want to upset them? Come on OP. You, your husband and most of all your kids deserve better than that.

loseyourself have you read all the OPs posts?

I agree with you butterymuffin reminds me once when my teenage stepson said to his mother 'Grandads a racist isn't he' to which she said 'yes but you must never say that in front of him'. I sat there thinking wtf? For context she's white and been in a very happy relationship with a black man for a long time but her df won't accept him whatsoever and won't have him in the house but everyone makes excuses for him cos he's old (no dementia etc bright as a button)

My parent is a narcissist perpetual ‘victim’, lives for drama, everyone is so horrible, wehhh. She now is reaping what she sowed and can fuck right off, no engagement, grey rock only. People without the burden of abusive parents cannot possibly understand, this thread is not about animal carcasses, it your choice to allow your shit parents to keep bringing their bullshit into your life. Call in to their house by yourself for an hour on xmas day if you really feel the need, but otherwise just enjoy a day off work and binge on food and consumer products with your actual family, the people you chose to be your family. Join the Stately Homes threads for people burdened with scum for relatives threads and end the horror.

Speaking as a male who has had to deal with this circumstance I can only hope you guys can find a way to do what my wife and I do which is to spend every single Christmas away from home. Know it's expensive with the kids and all, but then you can spend New Year with them.

In my case it was my father staying with us and my stepdaughter both trying to out grump one another and we were hiding in the kitchen. We looked at one another and said"Let's never do this again!" and we haven't The Dales are lovely at Christmas and we really celebrate it.

If you can't afford this, is there anyone you could go and stay with? Bringing food, drink, presents etc? I do hope so.

If I was your DH and you were undermining me over this I would be starting to think, "One day it will be her choice, me or her parents."

Your parents will never change, they sound a bit like my ILs, but we formed an allaiance against them and stopped seeing them, until right at the end of their lives. (They had abused DP all through her childhood, first mariage and even after the divorce still preferred her abusive ex.)

Remember who you chose to spend your life with, to be the father to your children, he deserves better than this.

Let them bring the beef ffs

Those saying let them being the beef ffs etc, have you rtft or not?