To not want a stranger at Christmas?

[Oneeyedreindeer]

My mother and brother were due to come to my house for Christmas. I am married with 3 DC, one of who is a young baby. Last week he randomly said he has a friend from abroad coming to stay for a month and if I don’t invite him he will be alone on Christmas Day.

i explained I don’t want a stranger there and it changes the dynamics with small children/breastfeeding etc. he is insisting I could meet the friend beforehand. He is like a dog with a bone and won’t drop it and keeps bringing it up/poor friend will he all alone etc etc. I’ve been clear that if he can’t come as he needs to be with his friend that’s fine and now I feel very mean indeed. But AIBU? I just think it would be very awkward indeed and I do also think there’s an element of my brother wanting to park up for some free/food drink with his friend - he suggested bringing his games consoles “for DC to play” although DC are 4 and under.

Well there you have it. He clearly feels zero guilt in saying no to you, you needn't feel any guilt in saying no to his friend.

His flat (which is subsidised heavily by my mother) is apparently too dangerous for children

How would that help?
Most child abuse is committed by perps within or known by someone in the family.

Not that this is what the thread's about, OP's more concerned with how her very young DC's reaction to a big new grown up will occupy the dynamic she's planned for them. She wants to focus on them, not the manchild & his friend gaming in the living room & totally changing the atmosphere. Even if she manages to 'ban' the console, it shows how much effort DB was planning on putting into making sure DC & friend are all comfortable & well-attended to.

It's like a plague of unconsciously gender-biased locusts in here today, doing the patriarchy's job for it. Just as you think it's safe to get back to the fields, up pops another one, buzzing #BeeeeeeKiiiiiind.

These locusts are special, as their frequency can only be heard by females, so they have evolved to not waste energy on emitting their transmissions to males.

You can't leave it there, OP! What does he mean by "dangerous"? A carpet of broken glass shards? Rat traps lying casually around?

👏👏👏

“Mold, damp, cold, windows that could fall out at any moment”

my mother “it’s just too cold because he’s too mean to heat it”

I haven’t been invited there for over a year but last time I went it was perfectly fine

My thoughts exactly.
You'd think the brother, who met/stayed with this pal on his own journey to China, would know & appreciate this too.

Instead of totally failing to plan for xmas himself despite inviting him over for a whole month so having plenty of time to do so. And compounding his mean-spiritedness by inviting himself to his sister's, & being prepared to leave the guy behind rather than do any hosting himself.

I look forward to reading your Ofsted and Local Authority Audit comments. Probably from safely behind the sofa with my hands largely covering my eyes.

Love it - OP, on the nope to Boxing Day. Now you have to start trolling your 'd'b. Maybe say you don't want his friend to miss out so you'll all come round to his on Xmas day instead. Don't worry about the food - you'll bring a starter and some toys for the kids to play with.

every time he brings it up you can say 'oh but I thought we were coming to yours.......'

But he wants to bring his games console, is 35, refuses to ever host his sister. How anyone can say he's the reasonable family orientated one I don't know.

If he didn't want to host his own friend, THEN WHY DID HE INVITE HIM TO STAY FOR A MONTH IN DECEMBER? And signally fail to make a single plan other than "I know, I'll dump the whole shebang on my sister at the last minute - genius, can't go wrong, why would I make any effort myself?"

Excuse me Arabian, for the shouty caps!
But OP's initial post describes how he's tried to play her so clearly I'm amazed PP still aren't seeing it 26 pages in.

What's so unusual or difficult about "yeah, sometimes I go to the family get-togethers, but this xmas I've got my pal staying so I'm going to do all the British xmas stuff & corny traditions at my place for him, should be a hoot" - just like thousands of friends all over the UK?

Oh, do push off with your bullshit #bekind stuff. OP deserves to have a nice Christmas herself.

How on earth is the brother the reasonable one?!

All they did was turn up, hand over gifts, peer at the baby and then fuck off to spread the Good News (and thereby caused the Slaughter of the Innocents from their complete inability to STFU about how the kid would put Herod and his line out of a job).

The Holy Mother wasn't informed that she'd be catering for six unknown men at her expense shortly after producing the Messiah, three of whom were certainly somewhat grubby, smelled of sheep shit and were well known as being of ill repute, plus providing a suitably appreciative audience for the Heavenly Host doing a turn after the entrees whilst navigating some rather dubious presents left by assorted cattle in the outhouse she'd been consigned to because her husband had decided to turn up to complete the census without checking his Hotels.com booking had confirmed.

To be fair, my house is dangerous for children. The stairs are too steep for small children, there is no stair gate, poisons are in easy reach, as are breakable items. No furniture is anchored to the wall (and some of it is actively wobbly), the gas and hot water pipes are just hanging out in the living room, like some sort of evil climbing frame, the central heating is set too high, one of the door handles is poorly attached and I CBA fixing it, and probably a billion more safety hazards I can't think of right now.

None of these are particularly dangerous to me, because I'm an adult, but I don't allow children in here unsupervised, because childproofing a house from scratch is a lot of work.

Yep, this.

Mention that you prefer homemade custard and the kids will be NO bother seeing as he’s so willing to share his games console… you can sit in the kitchen and chat while he cooks and they amuse themselves with his stuff. It will be Such Gun! So kind of him to offer and give his friend a family Christmas…

Dying at the homemade custard

it is a good point that he doesn’t celebrate Christmas anyway so it’s not like it matters to him

To be fair, I don't celebrate easter, but being invited to a Greek family easter was a lovely experience. The friend I was staying with hosted me though - we attended church, popped in & out of family homes for quick drinks & introductions, chatted to people promenading - but SHE was the person making herself responsible for me. It wouldn't have occurred to her to foist me off on someone else so she wouldn't have to cater for me.

I'd have been surprised if she'd told me "I can't be arsed to show you easter traditions myself so will mooch off my brother & we'll game instead of joining in & having fun with the kids. Oh dear - he wasn't expecting you & is only having close family today, so instead of doing my own easter I'm going to badger him until he relents. Ooops he isn't relenting, oh well that's YOU dumped then."

I'd have coped perfectly fine but been a bit . At her. Not her brother. He wasn't my host.

But she's not like OP's brother. Being dual nationality herself she knows how overwhelming & knackering performing "foreign guest who speaks Greek like a 2 year old" & "doesn't know us or understand our customs but appreciates being briefly introduced" all day is. So she ensured I got the best of both worlds - see & dip into the experience, but be whisked off back to the social comfort of her own home to deal with our own lamb pit & talk English like loons (she missed her first language).

Not an iota of this has occurred to OP's brother.
He didn't plan for his guest's comfort because he didn't expect to have to.
he thought he could dump it all on OP, & rock up with a (maybe shy, as are many visitors, even if fluent) pal & sit on his arse gaming all day at her house while not contributing a jot.

I’m not trying to say the friend is the unreasonable one. Why does only one person bear any responsibility in this scenario?

A previous poster suggested Christmas was a strange time for someone to plan to go abroad and expect to be hosted by strangers. You jumped on this saying he’s from a culture where Christmas isn’t a big thing. My very reasonable point was that if you know that much about China, it’s not that big a leap of faith to think he has similar knowledge of the British approach to Christmas - or that he should have checked it out before travelling there at Christmas.

Two male friends having Christmas alone seems quite sad.

Why?
They planned to spend December together, they clearly enjoy each other's company.

I often spend NYE with one female friend. Are we quite sad too, or does that only apply to penis owners?

It is not weird for people to want to spend it with their family

Read the initial post again.
Listen to OP's DH, who calls DB a moocher.

He doesn't want to spend xmas with family. What he wanted was to invest zero effort, rock up with a room-&-atmosphere-hogging games console, get royally fed by his sister, & progressively more pissed (OP update, not my opinion).

That's behaving like a teenager, not spending quality time with family.

This is what Team AllAloneTM are failing to intuit on behalf of DB's friend.
For all we know he might prefer to do his own thing.
Or THEIR own thing, with his friend keeping him company.

Makes me wonder how many PP have spent festivals abroad in friend's family homes, so understand how knackering & awkward it can be to have to break out the small talk for hours on end.

Also maybe he is the nicest and most fun guy ever and amazing with children/ but life has taught me he’s 70% likely to be very very awkward or pick his nose constantly or anything else negative 😆

and I can’t really meet him for a Christmas interview beforehand to see which one he is

@NeverDropYourMooncup fair play the Holy Mother had a shite journey, seemingly useless bastard of a husband and just given birth in some filthy outbuilding but even she managed to plaster a smile on and say 'come on in lads you will have to take us as you find us but I will get the kettle on'