AIBU to ask my husband to change Christmas traditions with DSC

[spookymooky1]

My husband has two children from his previous relationship, both boys one aged 8 and one 12. We have been married three years and together for 5, I was not the other woman.
He basically gets his kids 45% of the time. He does all the pick ups and drop offs and their mum lives around 40 minutes drive away.
Christmas (yes I know it's early but in a step family you do start thinking of plans well in advance) he normally picks the DSC up at 1ish on Christmas Day and keeps them until Boxing Day 6ish.
This has never been ideal for me and now we have a 2 1/5 year old toddler I'm wondering if it's time for a change.
him picking up his kids at 1pm means it splits our day right down the middle, we can't go to my families for Christmas lunch and they've often eaten lunch at their mums so won't touch my Christmas tea.
They always had their Christmas Day on Boxing Day morning (Santa came to dads on Christmas night) I don't think the boys believe in Santa anymore.
AIBU to ask every second year we do Christmas the three of us and collect them on Boxing Day morning? I don't mind things staying the same this year but any suggestions moving forward would be appreciated

Wait, is he actually dictating or is he open to reviewing the situation as he previously suggested?

So you’re not allowed to go over there even with him?

Or them come to yours?

If so, the step kids and routine are a red herring and completely irrelevant.

You should be allowed to all go over in the morning or afternoon some of the time or your parents come to you.

This is the point the OP is making. The rigidity of the current arrangements and the handover happening at 1pm makes that unfeasible.

Should people who weren't involved in that decision in any way also be bound to these apparently immutable arrangements for the next 10+ years as well? How ridiculous.

@MargotBamborough this is what I was trying to say, but you phrased it better.

He said the situation around the DSC could change, but this was years ago he said it and he may have forgotten.
If I ever mention seeing my family without him or DSC he shuts that down entirely, he says we are a family and need to spend it together, even though we get left for 1 and a half hours at 12.30

Why can’t you go to your family’s whilst he goes to pick his kids up?

Or they come to yours?

No OP said it makes it difficult to have other plans due to dinner timings because he’s leaving in the middle of the day.

She said nothing about him not letting her see her parents.

That is obviously very serious and completely different than missing Christmas dinner or the DSC not being hungry enough to eat it.

So do you think her parents' Christmas Dinner arrangements should be dictated by her husband's ex wife?

Do you have any idea how far away the OP's family live?

@1month OP said

"My DH is absolutely against us not being together on Christmas Day itself, he'd be deeply wounded if I suggested that I go to my parents on my own for Christmas. I would be prepared to make this compromise but he won't"

At 11:51.

Yes that’s understandable as you’d want to spend Christmas with your wife and kids.

But there’s a massive difference between not wanting to spend Christmas without your partner and not allowing your partner to see their family.

If OP is saying that her DH would not allow them all to see her family or her family aren’t allowed to visit them, then the step kids are irrelevant because OP should get out of the relationship.

No of course not but that doesn’t mean that they can’t go after dinner instead.

OP implied that the step kids have dinner before they leave their mums which makes it difficult to visit extended family.
In which case they can visit in the morning or evening and the step kids don’t need a big Christmas dinner, which would make cooking easier anyway.

But now OP is saying she’s not allowed to see her family, which is obviously a very different story and pretty serious, as that’s a controlling relationship.

So are you saying she shouldn't be allowed to have Christmas lunch with her family? Because that is what her husband is in effect preventing, by being unavailable for an hour and a half over lunchtime every year, but not allowing her to go off and do her own thing.

We've always had DSC every other Christmas. It's the only fair way. I don't live close to my parents so if we had to split Xmas day every year, we'd never be able to take the kids to my parents'. Also I don't like doing the same thing each year. Sometimes we have Xmas day at home, sometimes we go to my parents or DH's parents or to my siblings houses. I don't want to be forced to be at home every year just to fit with what DH and his ex want. Families evolve, routines need to adapt. I don't understand sticking rigidly to something that doesn't work for the majority just because 'that's how it's always been done'.

Nobody is saying that @MargotBamborough, as was previously suggested if they pushed their lunch back then OP plus DH and all the kids could happily have their lunch there. But OP wouldn’t dare even suggest her family compromise, she only wants her husband to compromise on seeing his kids🤷🏻‍♀️

Also as you said, her husband is gone for 90 mins driving to collect his kids, what stops OP going to see her family in that time? What stops her family coming to their home for all of that time and even earlier/beyond that?

There’s a lot of compromises to be made before as a step parent you dictate that your husband should see his own kids less/not at all on Christmas Day

Yes of course she can have Christmas lunch with her family.

If that’s the case then issue isn’t the step kids routine here, as OP initially suggested.

Its the fact she’s not allowed to go and do anything or have her parents over whilst her DH is out.
If that is what is happening.

@spookymooky1 OP can you confirm whether my understanding is correct?

Your stepchildren spend every Christmas morning with their mother and then your husband picks them up at 1pm. They have already had an early Christmas lunch with their mother.

Your husband is gone for an hour an a half over lunchtime. This means you are alone at home with your child over lunchtime, not having Christmas lunch but presumably just eating something light to tide you over until later.

Your parents have their Christmas meal at lunchtime but you can never join in with this because it clashes with the time your husband has to collect his children from their mother's house, and he won't accept you going to their house for Christmas lunch without him.

Your step children then join you from early afternoon onwards. They have already had their main meal that day but you have not.

Someone, either you or your husband, but I suspect you, then prepares what is the main Christmas meal for you, your husband and your joint child, to be eaten later in the day, which your stepchildren only pick at because they have already had their main meal and are not hungry.

If you were to visit your parents in the evening you would not get a Christmas meal because they have already eaten their Christmas meal at lunchtime.

And your own child is young, so going round to your parents' house after you have eaten your Christmas meal in the evening is going to be after your child's bedtime and so not really feasible even if your stepchildren actually wanted to go and visit your parents, which they probably don't.

This could be resolved by alternating Christmases, or your stepchildren coming to you later in the afternoon, after you have already had your Christmas lunch, or by tweaking some aspect of the current arrangements in some other way.

Is that about the size of it?

That's exactly what her husband is saying.

He doesn't want her to go and celebrate any main part of the day without him.

The Christmas meal is the main part of the celebrations.

She cannot have Christmas lunch with her parents and her husband because her husband is unavailable over lunchtime every single year and does not want her to go and do this without him.

And if she did, her husband would be the only person who had not had a Christmas meal at lunchtime, and therefore the only person wanting to eat a big meal in the evening.

That's its exactly it @MargotBamborough
I have tried to cook Christmas tea the last three christmases so we can have that about 6 ish, turkey, crackers etc but I'm left to do all the work while my husband is out, he arrives back with DSC, sometimes quite a bit later as they are never ready and they don't want to eat the tea.

My DH alternates Christmas each year with his ex. They’ve been doing this for well over a decade now and it’s worked well. They tried the whole splitting the day, but it just caused too much stress and nobody was able to relax.

Now his boys are getting older, your DP will probably find they prefer alternating anyway.

To all the posters saying routines need to change and kids need to adapt, etc.: the OP isn't just objecting to the current routine. She doesn't want to have her stepchildren all Christmas Day every other year. But she doesn't want her husband to continue spending half of the day with his kids, either. So, she's angling for him to stop seeing them on Christmas Day, full stop. She feels more comfortable asking him to do this than to ask her own family to delay lunch for two hours.

"Dad has a new family now and doesn't even want to see me on Christmas Day anymore" is the stuff of children's nightmares. Not just for the younger child, but for the sixteen-year-old as well.

Oh and you would like your stepchildren's mother to start doing at least some of the drop offs so your husband isn't absent for a large chunk of the day every year.

@MargotBamborough yes as we can't very well have a relaxing Christmas lunch before the DSC arrive as DH can't even have a glass of wine

How would asking her own family to delay lunch for two hours help matters?

She's said her husband isn't good at timekeeping so is often back later than planned (which could quite easily ruin her family's Christmas lunch) and even if he was on time he'd be rocking up with two children in tow who aren't blood relatives of the OP's parents so probably aren't particularly interested in seeing them, and have already eaten.

That's crazy.

Well, it's a hell of a lot better than asking him not to see his own children on Christmas Day!