For various reasons that don’t really have anything to do with this issue, my brother, SIL and two children are currently living with me, my husband and our son. They have been here for 3 months and are likely to be for another 6 months. We all generally get on very well, and them living with us isn’t the issue.
When they moved in, we very much took the view that while they they stay here our house is their house. We don’t expect them to feel like guests, or like they don’t belong here; while it’s their home they can treat it as such.
This may have led do the current issue, which is that every year my husband and I host a huge Christmas party for everyone we know, but this year my brother and SIL don’t want us to do it. We’ve held firm (and now it’s too late to cancel tbh) but they asked us several times to skip it this year. We insisted on going ahead, they’ve decided to go and stay with my mum that weekend as a result.
Their reasons are that they’re both introverts, and they hate parties. They never host them and would never put themselves in the position of having to have a party in their house. They find them noisy and disruptive, and while our house is temporarily our home we should give consideration to how they feel about it. They don’t want to have to deal with the stress of preparation / cooking etc going on in their peaceful home space. They don’t want to have to socialise at a party on the day.
My reasons for pressing ahead are that it’s my favourite thing about Christmas, I love it with my whole heart, and I’m not willing to give it up because they don’t like the idea when they can go to my mum’s for the weekend (as they have now decided to do).
We’re all basically being civil but I can tell they’re hurt and feel like we don’t care. Have I been unreasonable? Part of me feels like it’s my house and they can just suck it up, but I recognise that we committed to this arrangement and promised them it’s their home too for the duration of their stay, and this could be seen as us reneging on that. I don’t want them to feel like I think I can just throw my weight around and discard them because they’re living with us for a while, but equally this feels like an unfair ask on their part.