My SIL lets call her Rachel is vile, she has temper tantrums regularly. Generally directed at her father. Usually, the tantrums will be for something nobody has any idea about, she will sulk for months, and be outright nasty for ages.
To the current dilemma. MIL has been seriously ill recently and is recovering. I asked DH to find out what MIL and Rachel's plans are for Christmas, if it’s at our house I will need to order food etc.
SIL left DH on read (so we knew she was pissed off at one or both of us), then yesterday she sent a calculated rude message, saying Christmas is her mother’s religious festival and she (SIL) will cook as she always has.
This is meant to be nasty as I am Muslim and Christmas has no religious bearing for me. I and DH and our DC all join in the festivities with his family to keep them happy and it is fun being with family. Frankly if I could stay home and relax with my kids watching crap on TV and just being together it would be far cheaper and agreeable for us.
SIL’s behaviour during Christmas’s past has been as follows, she will wake up late huff and puff at all ‘the work’, be rude and shouty with her mother, we all pitch in (she isn’t doing the work herself by any means), washing dishes and chopping veg, getting the turkey in the oven, and OMG I made gravy one year, and she was so vile to me kept telling me my gravy was floury and she preferred the tinned gravy. I’ve not made her gravy since, she gets her tinned gravy every time now, despite asking me last year where the vegetarian gravy was (she is vegetarian when it suits her), I told I know she found my gravy to taste floury so we’d ensured we had her fave tinned gravy in.
I know MIL does not want Christmas at her house she is not well and its too much for her, but this is what will happen as SIL bullies her mother to do what she wants. SIL will then be a martyr and spend the day being nasty and bitchy to me and DH (who is used to his sister’s nastiness). Then we will no doubt hear about how hard done by she is for the rest of the year.
I personally do not want to go to MIL’s this Christmas, my older DC will be at work, we don’t celebrate Christmas so they take on shifts for their colleagues who do. I don’t want to spend my day walking on eggshells around SIL and listening to her bitching at me and trying not to walk in on her bitching about me to her mum. I don’t want or need to hear her nastiness. She is vile, I know this, I don’t need more reason to dislike her.
I am fine for DH to go and take our younger DC because I know MIL will want to see her DGC. But he’s upset that his mum will be upset if I don’t go.
I don’t want to be a target for SIL and I know I will utterly lose it with her, I’ve spent years biting my tongue and laughing off her bad behaviour. I don’t want to anymore. She is horrible, she has a long history of being nasty at every opportunity to me and DH. I don’t want to be available for her to abuse anymore.
How do I go about this without hurting MIL and giving SIL more ammunition to be nasty?