Strap in, people..it’s a long one.
My SIL and family (DH, 2 twenty something kids) live 400 miles away. We’ve spent most of our Christmasses for the last 30 years together usually here in Scotland.
Family dynamic has changed slightly since Covid Christmas 2020 - FIL was seriously unwell and died early in Jan 2021. SIL and BIL (her kids stayed in London) were here for Christmas but didn’t hang around to help nurse her father. Headed South on the 27th and never reappeared even for the funeral or to support her mum. MIL and us were hurt and upset by this but moved on - everyone reacts differently to grief and she clearly just couldn’t face it.
This has continued since. Despite being retired, she rarely comes up. We all have a great time when they do appear once or twice a year but they haven’t been back for Christmas in 2021 or 2022. MILs take on this is that SIL can’t face a Scottish Christmas without her dad. Although we have other family options my side, we’ve been left on our own as a family on Christmas Day (DH, DS 13) with MIL because MIL won’t go down South or to her other son’s and just wants to see our son (her only grandson who is still a child) open his presents on Christmas morning. This has been a bugbear for us but MIL is 89 so we’ve always felt she might not have many Christmas Days left so it’s seemed the best option.
This year, DH has been in hospital since September after a cancer op went horribly wrong. He’s nearly died a few times - he had major surgery last week, is in ICU, tested positive for Covid this week, has an abscess and sepsis. It’s currently life and death stuff and both SIL and MIL are fully aware of the situation.
My SIL & BIL were last up in Nov and the lack of Christmas chat was noticeable. They returned home and then texted the following week to day that they thought had decided to go away for Christmas with the kids to a cottage somewhere. No discussion, no what do you think - how are you feeling about Christmas coming up? I’ve not made any comments about this to them.
I was gutted especially as DS who adores his big cousins had just asked if they were coming up for Christmas and I’d had to say I wasn’t sure. I’d envisaged they’d want to come up to support us as all as a family, especially MIL and DS on Christmas Day if their dad/son was in hospital. They could have cooked dinner while I took DS/MIL to the hospital & kept DS distracted rest of the day. They said they’ve always wanted to go away and this year felt like a good year to do it as they had a big birthday in October and one coming up in March and were still planning on doing that.
Instead they will go off to their cottage whilst I at best, will have DS and MIL (no way will she go to her other son’s when DH is in the hospital) to cook for and take to the hospital.
My niece is a lovely girl and I can’t believe she would knowingly leave her little cousin alone on Christmas Day knowing his dad and her uncle is so desperately ill. I suspect that SIL hasn’t told her kids how unwell DH is and they didn’t expect he’d still be in hospital.
Its all the more upsetting as we’ve always hosted and DH has cooked them Christmas feasts for whole weeks at Christmas for all those years. It feels like now grandpa isn’t here, they can’t face it and whilst we’ve been the entertainers and providers whilst niece and nephew were young, they can’t reciprocate for our DS.
I’m obviously under a lot of stress with my DH so I’ve not expressed how I feel in case it comes out wrong but I’m really upset and want to know if I’m being unreasonable to expect family to rally round us. SIL isn’t particularly self aware so I’m worried that if a pic of them drinking champagne in a hot tub pops up in the family group chat while we are at the hospital, I might blow.