To hate spending Christmas with my DIL

[NanaZoZo]

I have 2 DC and one DSD, DS married, lives down south, has a 2 year old. DD and DSD live in Australia.
DS and DIL have taken over the hosting of Christmas. My DCs dad and I split when they were tiny (1 and 4) so for 25 years Christmas was them spending Christmas Eve and morning with their dad and coming to us after midday for dinner and the evening. This worked great as I’m not a massively festive person. Now we swap year as to who goes down for Christmas.
My DIL is lovely, we get on great, however she’s nothing like me. She didn’t have a great childhood and has no relationship with her parents, so now she places a high importance on Christmas for her DD and I think DS has indulged in it too.
Here is the issue - I hate it. It’s not necessarily over the top, it’s traditional. She likes everyone to dress up nicely, they buy expensive food (think Harrods and Fortnum and Mason). Luckily they keep the decor classy but they spent thousands on it including expensive Christmas only tableware. It’s all a bit much for me. I’d rather we stayed in PJs till noon, then threw on Christmas jumpers and had a nice roast. The day is quite rigid in her mind, it has to be Chinese on Christmas Eve even if we don’t fancy it, dinner is at 2 no negotiations on that either, she spends about an hour playing us Christmas songs on the piano and we all have to go a walk after dinner even if you just want to nap!!
Now like I say she’s lovely and it comes from a good place (she just wants DGD to have positive Christmas memories and tradition). But I really hate it, we had 2021 (when they had a 4 month old and still put on this grand Christmas) so it’s back to us this year, and I just can’t bring myself to look forward to it.
I’m half tempted to say we will come down on Boxing Day and spend the day lazily with DH and the dog. But I do want to see DGD on Christmas and I know she sill probably be more engaged this year which will make for fun. It would also be difficult to explain why we weren’t coming down as there is nothing keeping us up here. DH also thinks it’s just worse this year as last year we went to Australia for Christmas, and it was a busy one too (DSD has 3 kids to the DGC were ruling the day) so we haven’t had a chill at home Christmas since Covid.
WIBU to say we aren’t going down until Boxing Day, knowing it will probably hurt DIL, or should I suck it up, get in the festive spirit, go along with it all so we are part of DGD happy Christmas?

OP could be neurodivergent 🤷‍♀️

I would suck it up. Are you able to arrange for future Christmases to be one year at your home (so you can chill/have a more informal day), one year in Aus and one year with DS and DIL?

DS and DIL's Christmas sounds lovely. I remember we (me/my siblings) used to get a new outfit for Christmas. The house would be packed with family and friends visiting (my DPs had a large house), and DP would also invite people from Church who might be otherwise lonely on Christmas Day. There are (professional) musicians and singers in the family, so we'd have carols and music playing too. Lots of food, walks, games etc.

My DP are both dead now, and those types of Christmases long gone, but cousins and friends still talk about how much they enjoyed those times, and their happy memories of them. Perhaps this is what you DIL is trying to do, so that you DGD will have those lovely memories.

I don’t know why you can’t just opt out of the bits you don’t like. Say no thanks to the walk and take your own quality street if her hotel chocolates aren’t good enough for you. In other words grow a pair.

you do both sound like a fucking misery tbh.

Would enjoy seeing the responses if the OP was the DIL and invited to her PIL for this sort of formal Christmas.
I'd bet anything she'd be told to just refuse to go, that it's an invite not a summons, that she has very right to stay home in her PJ's if that's what she wants!

😂

You sound quite fussy and hard to please, op. I know you’re presenting it as “I’m a laid back type who likes to slob in my pyjamas” but there isn’t really anything laid back about your position- you’re grumbling about absolutely everything even the brand of chocolates.

I would suggest sucking it up and trying to be pleasant. The only part where you’re not being unreasonable is about the walk, where you should absolutely be able to decline.

Put the poor DIL out of her misery and decline the invitation. There’s no way she wants her ungrateful snooty MIL there on xmas day judging all the effort she is making. You will be invited purely for the sake of your DS. If he wants you there he needs to host IMO.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say you'll come down Boxing Day at all. Just tell them you've not had Xmas together for years so this is what you're planning.

This is so harsh. Ok her day isn’t your cup of tea and it isn’t mine either but it’s every other year. She had a difficult upbringing and she’s trying to make sure her child (your grandchild!) experiences joy and effort. It’s not about the day but clearly she puts care and effort into it.
Might be hard to accept but I wonder if your son never enjoyed his childhood Christmas days either and so perhaps he likes these big grand days too?! Shuttling around on Christmas Day is shit for kids. I remember this very well!

I completely appreciate that you would prefer a more relaxed Christmas. Your DIL’s style of Xmas wouldn’t be up everyone’s street.

But I think you should go along and appreciate the parts of it that you do enjoy. As you say, your GD will have a great day and that’s not something you want to miss out on.

If this were every year I'd say you have a point, but as you go every other year I assume you spend the middle one however you please (in Australia or otherwise)?

In that case YABU. Agree with PPs that your DS may well love the structure and tradition after years of being pushed pillar to post.

Get pyjamas like this. Then you can come down and sit among people, unwashed, the way you want.

As long as they don't see them the night before, no one will know they are pyjamas apart from your husband. They can be your once a year Christmas eve pyjamas. Or you can cycle through colours,; a red one next year, then green, then black.

That's not the same thing. The OP doesn't want to go to her son's house. The "opposite" of that would be the son not wanting to go to his mother's house or DIL not wanting to go to HER mother's house.

The OP is putting all the blame on her DIL, but this is her son's home and Christmas setup too.

Well, I am on your side, definitely in the minority. I worked 29 Christmases out of 30 night nursing. Every year MIL (aka the word of God) demanded to know what I was doing Christmas day (after working the previous night) I would say, sleeping before that nights shift. We were summoned. I never got to sleep. The day was planned out. She actually ruined Christmas for us,I don't enjoy it at all now. Can I bring my dogs and come and stay with you 🤣🤣

Ah OP this isn’t a huge deal - you need to assert yourself a bit but mainly stop being a grump

Establish a dodgy ankle that means you can sit on the sofa for carols and skip the walk.

Take some quality street (you can get a tin with your name done for the Hallmark effect) and any other booze or food you want to have. (Don’t buy anything to replace what they chose obvs, but extra things for you to are fine.) Your grandchild will like the quality street and it will become granny’s chocolate tradition.

As the kids get older your DIL will relax a bit and it will all become more pleasantly chaotic.

I think it’s worth addressing why this bothers you so much. We have a fairly trad Christmas (not so formal but we dress for lunch and go for a walk and stuff) as a lot of people do, so while your DIL is being a bit OTT, it’s not unusual.

Does it feel like a criticism of the Christmaseses you held, or bring up difficult childhood stuff - or do you just hate anything formal, or hate being forced into someone else’s routine - if so why is that?

I think it’s worth thinking about a bit, partly because it’s such a tiny period of time so it’s odd it’s such a big thing for you - but also so you understand where both you and DIL come from - she is clearly trying to create a ideal childhood she didn’t have, and if she used to sing professionally then a bit of theatre on the day will be a comfortable safe place for her.

It goes without saying you can’t just say you’ll come on Boxing Day, because the invite is for Christmas, so without a cast iron reason, that would be rude.

I'm crying at this comment.

I've got to agree OP, I kept reading your post waiting for the 'bad' parts...it all sounds completely fine...maybe the carols around the piano a bit OTT but everything else sounds like a very normal Christmas. I can't imagine how what shop the decorations came from/how much they cost even being something I'd notice, let alone that would impact on my day! I also can't imagine not fancying chinese tbh but if you don't just arrive afterwards/say you're not hungry so will just have some chips. Nothing you've said sounds particularly noteworthy at all, and at the end of the day you're an adult, if you don't want to go for a walk nobody can make you!

Is there more to this, does it make you feel like your 'old' Christmases weren't good enough because your DS goes along and seems to enjoy this new/"improved" version?

And this is supposed to be a day people enjoy? There's something wrong with a day in the year that you're expected to endure and be miserable.

As I said, if I were the OP I'd stay at home.

Would be tempted to put in some cheeky earplugs as they gather round the piano but apart from that - it’s all fine.

I wouldn't be going anywhere, where somebody is arrogant and rude enough to force people to listen to their performance for an hour every time.

You are sounding like Scrooge here @NanaZoZo.

It sounds like your DS likes the whole piano playing things. And your husband even enjoys it (but maybe doesn’t want to tell you he does!).

You’re even whinging that there are hotel chocolat chocolates rather than quality street.

Maybe you could try actually embracing the Christmas spirit. You opted out of it for most of your children’s childhood - they went to their dad’s for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning then came to you to act like it’s already Boxing Day. That’s fine - but it does sound like your DS and his wife want their Christmas to be different.

Take the Quality Street with you!

And you might find that as DGC gets older things get more relaxed as the 'timetable' won't suit

Often the threads from DILs re Christmas involve her having to travel with small children which can be stressful and exhausting, manage toddlers out of routine, not get fed (there is always someone every year whose MIL refuses to feed them at Christmas), get treated badly and they're told to stay home rather than run themselves ragged and disrupt their own children at Christmas so that a grandparent can keep control of the Christmas they've always had. If someone came on and complained that their MIL gave them chocolates they consider too expensive they'd get fairly short shrift. The OP is being generously hosted, it's just not to her taste so she needs to decide if she can put up with it or needs to risk hurting their feelings by staying home.

I think a DIL would get exactly the same advice - which is that when someone else is going to the massive trouble of Christmas and you basically want to go, you have to suck up how they do it.

Either of them could politely decline, and that would be fine (as long as their partners agree) - but if you go, you go with the flow, and it’s daft to make a big deal of it.

I don't see why it's awful. She's not stopping her DIL from having the Christmas she wants. She just doesn't want to join in.

They are Christmas Carols. At Christmas. From someone who used to sing professionally and wants to make the day special for her kid.

It’s annoying, but it’s not a huge deal to sit on the sofa, smile, and drift off into your own world.