Husband wants every Christmas with his family?

[ChouxPastryHeart]

Hi all :-)
This is my first time posting and I would really love some advice. It will be quite long so I can give proper context, so please bear with me!

DH and I have been together 10 years. He is Swedish, and I am Italian but grew up in Scotland with my mother and sister. We met in Scotland, but moved to Sweden in Oct 2019 to start a family. For the first 5 years of our relationship, we agreed that it was only fair to alternate Christmas between our two families, so one year we would stay in Scotland with my mum and sister and then the next we travelled to Sweden and spent it with his parents (his mum is now widowed but has new partner) maternal grandparents, BIL + his wife and kids.

In 2018, I became estranged from my mum and sister due to dysfunctional family dynamics, so we spent that Christmas just us as a couple in Scotland and till this day, we still say it was one of our favourite Christmases.

Since 2019, we have spent Christmas with his family. They have a tradition where they all meet up on the 23rd so that godparents of the BIL’s kids get candy and small gift. Then, there’s a Christmas dinner on 24th after which presents are opened.

Now we have two DD’s, 2.5 + 1 year old and for years, I’ve been saying to DH that once we have kids, I want us to start our own traditions. I think spending the 23rd and 24th with his extended family is too much. My ideal scenario would be to go see them the 23rd, stay at our home the 24th with just us and DD’s and do the whole build up to Christmas Day the British way so that kids open up presents on 25th instead of 24th. DH is opposed to this and says that we can still be with his family on 24th and be at home just us the 25th and create traditions for then. The thing is though, we’d get home at around 8pm to put DD’s to bed, knackered and frazzled, and we would have no time to prep for the next day like we would if we were at home the whole time. I think it’s unfair for him to expect us to always go to his family. He has had a good deal the last 4 years considering I have had no family to travel to Scotland for anymore. His ideal scenario now that his grandparents are too old to host, is that we take turns with us and BIL hosting the whole family every 24th. Am I being unreasonable to want to have the 24th to ourselves?

MIL is the type that always likes to get her way and has a tantrum when that’s not the case. She kicked up a fuss on Mother’s Day because I wanted to go out with a friend to have some me time instead of visiting her with DH and DD’s. 🙄

You're in the fortunate position of having two lots of Christmas traditions to incorporate into the Christmas break. If you were happy in your MIL's company, it wouldn't be a problem.

With just one lot of Christmas traditions to deal with, we've never opened our presents before lunch as we go out on a long walk, or just relax and slowly prepare dinner, which isn't served until about 5.00 pm on 25 December. You could easily do this after having the Swedish traditions on 24 December.

Keep up with the language learning in the meantime. A friend of mine moved to France with her husband and has similar language issues to you. For family gatherings,, she tends to take her knitting or crochet, which she can sit and do that whilst listening to conversations she doesn't feel able to participate in, and thinks this less rude than sitting there with a book.

Just shift the days you celebrate to fit in what you want. Doesn't have to be the 24th or the 25th if they don't suit.

Last year my DD wanted Christmas with her inlaws on the 24th and then with us on the 25th. But the trains didn't work well. She was so upset that she'd miss British Christmas. So we shifted it to the 26th instead. It worked really well.

Problem is this would be the same to them as celebrating on Boxing Day instead so they are likely to still hold their own "main" Christmas on the 24th but be hacked off they didn't host properly!

He is just asking for the 24th. If you plan well, it works wonderfully to split this way. The key is to have everything prepped in advance before you head out to the family gathering. You can even change young children into pajamas at the party. People tend to love seeing them all dressed in pajamas on Christmas Eve.

then home and straight to bed, presents transferred from the staged spot takes a couple of minutes.

we have done this for years. Dh’s family gets the 24th and its works wonderfully. We are free to have our family traditions on the 25th.

I spent most of my Christmases when my children were little with my in-laws because of various practical reasons and my husband pushing because he didn't want his parents to miss out on anything. I never got over it and instead of having happy memories with my little children over Christmas, I was always exhausted from running around following his parents' wishes and my husband's total ignoring of my needs in favor of him wanting to recreate his childhood for his kids. Now my kids are grown and it's too late for me to get those Christmases back.

Don't give in to your husband. Stay home for Christmas.

Were any timing allowances made when the nephews were little?

I wanted to add: to those who are saying that husband is just asking for 24th, that’s not really accurate. His family want to do the godparent tradition on the 23rd which would involve seeing MIL, BIL + wife and kids. Then on the 24th, we would spend it with the same people, but with the addition of DH’s maternal grandparents and aunt.

Yes. EVERY 24th.

If OP wants a relaxing Christmas every other year ,where she doesn't have to twist herself into knots to fit in all the requirements of two consecutive days of celebration, this is hardly an unreasonable expectation.

Whether or not the pattern that works for you also works for OP also depends on whether or not she wants to spend every major Christmas celebration with her in-laws.

She clearly doesn't. Nor do I blame her. I'm trying to imagine spending Christmas with my in-laws, every year with let-up and with without any quieter, more relaxing celebration to balance them out a bit.

Personally I'd rather stew my own socks as an accoutrement to the Christmas snorgasbord, hold my nose, and eat them.

I mean, that "one person" is the children's mother. Usually the mother does most of the work with the children. Mums get only a few times each year to just have fun with being a mum, and for OP, Christmas is one of those times. It shouldn't be taken away from her so that the happiness of her dh and various in-laws gets satisfied at her expense.

If you were just you guys on the 24th would you have full on Swedish Christmas or would it be just a day to chill and prep for 25th for the British Christmas?

don’t understand a word because it’s so fast. Plus, when we are there, only a few of them make the effort to speak a little in English with me. It really upsets me because I still feel like an outsider after all of these years.

You feel like an outsider "after all of these years" as you haven't made much effort to learn the language. 10 years is a long time.

Mums get only a few times each year to just have fun with being a mum

Sorry, I don't understand this. What are this times?

I wouldn’t want my DS up that late on Xmas Eve as he’d be a wreck on Xmas day so I get it. It’ll be much easier when the children are older but your DH does not get to call all the shots. He does need to compromise.

Having grown up with presents on Xmas eve, I fail to see why the 25th would be easier for small children, I'd think on the contrary it's a pita trying to get them to sleep/stay asleep for a morning celebration/keep them from waking everyone at 4am. Celebrating on the 24th, yes kids will stay up later than usual but they'll still get tired eventually and I've never seen any meltdowns in German kids. There's more advantages - Xmas is more spread out bc the main roast dinner is still on the 25th so doesn't get in the way. The 24th here is quite focused. The children's nativity play for the churchgoers at around 4 or 4:30 pm. Home for sundown and the first ceremonial lighting of the tree - most families still do live candles, kids stay out until candles are lit and then get the first view of the lit & decorated tree, no other lamps on, complete with presents. Carols for everybody, then bubbly for the grownups and present-opening for kids, followed by just a light supper (traditional is potato salad and wieners.) Obviously nobody gets put to bed at 7pm but the little ones will just nod off naturally around 10 at the latest, it's exhausting!

I think that sounds really hard, but it's not a Christmas problem, is it. It's a more general problem around how interested they are in making you feel welcome in the family, and how kind they are as people.

I really think you're making Christmas an unreasonable focus of your very reasonable objections to their behaviour towards you on the other 360+ days of the year. That might be understandable, but it isn't helpful to you imo.

I think you need a proper discussion with your DH about his family's more general attitude towards you - but be ready for the fact that you don't 'do' family to get thrown in your face as 'evidence' that yabu (I speak from experience, having a fractured family too).

In the interests of fair disclosure: I don't celebrate Christmas, so I don't think I'm being unreasonably sentimental about it, but I do think your children's Swedish cultural heritage should be respected - as well as their Scots/Italian heritage ofc.

This is how I dealt with that:

’off you go, I’m staying here’

and that worked.

My children just want to be at home in their own house at Christmas, and so do I.

It's a more general problem around how interested they are in making you feel welcome in the family, and how kind they are as people

Why? It isn't unkind of them to want to speak their own language in their own home ( in their own country!). It's great that they're able to speak some English at all! The OP really needs to make more of an effort to learn the local language.

Yeah.
While it's a hard language 4 years in the country surrounded by the language should mean more than just basic conversation and no understanding if group talks tbh. Maybe that's why they are quite not as willing. And yes, it is their home but some leniency would be expected, but all has it's limits. I say that as someone who doesn't speak DH's family language. We all try a bit, the ones with strong English bring me in, but I just let them get on with chatting most of the time. I am just now learning because we are becoming closer but I don't live in his native country. He can't speak mine either, he would well be expected to learn though if we did.

I married into a European way of celebrating Christmas. We would go to them on the 24th for a celebration meal and e change of their gifts to us and vice versa. Then go home. On xmas day my DIL would come for Christmas day at ours with my DP too.
Worked a dream.
Admittedly DC were not born at this point.
If had DC then I would have insisted on quietly exchanging adult presents only on 24th because Santa was arriving that night... ie the English Xmas was the normal.
My DXH didn't give a fig one way or another. He would have preferred to go abroad somewhere hot anyway.

I think it's very unkind if they know she doesn't understand them when they're speaking fast. I would expect that to happen unintentionally some of the time, and yes, of course she needs to learn Swedish and work at improving, but it's a two-way street if they want her to feel welcome in the family and to spend time with them. I think they could make more effort to ensure she can join in, either by speaking more slowly, or by code switching to English some of the time.

Swedish is fantastically hard, is not taught at all in the UK so she'll have been an adult learner, which is difficult in any language, and it will be OP's third language (at least) presumably, whereas her ILs will have learned English at school, and her DH at least must be fluent in it. Tbh, I think the DH is probably both OP's biggest problem and where the solution lies. If he wants to keep his wife happy as well as his mummy, he could do much more, e.g. in terms of translating for her, asking people to slow down and include her, helping OP with her own language acquisition - and, crucially, ensuring MIL isn't deliberately excluding her from Swedish conversations conducted at pace in order to maintain her position ruling the roost.

I still think it's a shame for Christmas to be a casualty in what seems like a wider problem, but I'm starting to see why OP is dreading it.

Departure Lounge

They're probably not actually "speaking fast". When you don't know a language it feels like people speak fast and words merge into eachother.
If you choose to live in a different country you really do need to learn the language. 10 years is a long time!

There are some posters who are assuming I have lived in Sweden for 10 years and find it shocking I haven’t learned the language yet. I have been with my husband for 10 years, but we only moved to Sweden in 2019. Before then, we had planned to live in Scotland and we only travelled to Sweden a few times a year together, so it was not a priority for me to learn Swedish at the time.

We moved to Sweden in October 2019 and I have worked as a teacher in an English school where I didn’t get much opportunity to practise Swedish. The pandemic happened and then I had two pregnancies and babies in fairly quick succession, on top of work, so learning Swedish hasn’t been as easy as some are making it out to be. During my maternity leaves, I have taken courses when I could fit them in and have made good progress which I plan to continue by focusing on full time Swedish studies for at least 6 months before going back to work.

To the person who mentioned that DH’s family probably aren’t speaking fast, it just sounds that way because I don’t know the language - there is also the fact that his family also come from a small village that has a very specific dialect, which they use, so even if I am listening super attentively, it is very difficult for me to pick up on what they are saying.

I wanted to explain and give more context, because some people are being a bit judgemental without having a clue about the feasible efforts I’ve actually made during the years I’ve been here.

Aside from that, I want to thank you all so much for all the advice and support. It really has helped me come to a solution in my head about what matters the most to me around Christmas, and how best to compromise so that we are all happy. 😊 I really really appreciate it!!! Thank you for those who extended extra empathy and kindness, especially those commenting on the estrangement part - it’s the price we pay to break generational trauma patterns. Very very hard, but hopefully worth it in the end.

We have a similar arrangement to what your husband has suggested and it works for us. We celebrate 'my' Christmas on the 24th and do the traditional English Christmas on the 25th and to be honest whilst it does take some organizing and sometimes compromising our children absolutely love having two Christmas'.

Whilst we both have traditions we like to keep on each of the days, we work around what works best for our family each year, nothing is set in stone and as our family changes our plans change too. The older the children get the better and easier it is too and most importantly they absolutely love being apart of both cultures.

I do think this works so well for us because we always prioritize 'us' first and manage to fit in what we both want to make it work.

Stick with 23-24 with his family and do your own thing 25-26 that way you can both be happy. If you are in Sweden the last thing your kids will want is presents on a totally different day to all kids in Sweden

@ClementWeatherToday is right…