Kids choice or Grandparents choice - Christmas Day

[openjoy]

Please tell me the right thing to do here.

We have hosted Christmas every year for the past 15 years to include my parents and DH mum (no dad or partner). We both have siblings with partners but no children, that choose to spend their Christmas on their own. Non negotiable to them. This has always been ok, we have 3 children so we host the grandparents and everyone is happy.

Our Christmas Day often revolves around our guests. My DH and I often feel hosting over takes our family time. I suggested to DH that this year, we don’t host. We let everyone know that for the first time in 15 years, we’d just like to be our family of 5. He suggested we ask the children what they would like to do and they said they’d like us to just be our family of 5. I actually don’t think he expected them to say that and he is regretting it.

His sibling has stayed firm in their Christmas choices and is refusing to have their mother at Christmas. DH now understandably is feeling bad for the mother at Christmas. MIL is a lovely, kind person but she does require hosting and she can be difficult. She does take up our time from our children and they feel it. There’s no malice, they love her and we could do something another day with her like Boxing Day.

For context she is 78 and our eldest child is 16. So it’s awful to think of her on her own but it’s also awful for this to possibly be one of the last childhood Christmas’s I have with my eldest and the one and only one where it’s just us together - at their choice. And if I have one grandparent I have to have the others and am back where I am now.

What do I do?!

Am I being unreasonable to stick with just us 5 on Christmas Day??

Having hosted for over 40 years I used to look forward to boxing day when it was just us again.

This year our DIL is hosting, I'm thrilled. We live around the corner so will be cooking the turkey and taking that round. Happy to help out but relieved not to be hosting.

Enjoy your Christmas @openjoy

We have recently started meeting at my mums for dinner about 4.30pm and it’s changed xmas day for us all for the better - nobody is rushing, mum pops up to see some of the grandkids first thing then leaves, kids get time to chill will new toys, hopefully time for a nap, then we all get together at night for dinner and games, could you just rearrange the time you see here?

Well this is a bit unfortunate.
I can't believe your DH gave the DC the choice without thinking through the consequences of it going either way.
I guess what happens now depends on your personal notion of 'right', and for me it would never be right to leave a 78 year old on her own at Christmas, even less so landing it on the woman in November, when she comes every year. And I wouldn't care less that she was my in law not mother, or that she had other children who 'should' have her. If they won't, they won't, and she's a woman on her own at Xmas, and that wouldn't sit right with me.
So, given that, I'd consider whether I could uninvite my parents without offending them, and if so, do so. If not, they'd be coming too.
Then id tell DH to say sorry kids, we can't have grandma on her own, so she'll be here.
Then I'd manage my day assertively so the presence of my MiL didn't prevent me spending time with my DC.

Having had years of having to alternate hosting parents and in laws, our children really did enjoy in lockdown having a Christmas just for immediate family. It sounds tough that your husbands sibling won't host your mil.

The kids should never have been put in that position.

It's not an either/or choice.

I'd tell MIL that you're doing Christmas differently this year, trying something more informal as you want to get more into the fun and less into the host role. Give some examples, such as there will be a drinks station for everyone to help themselves to, snacks on the table, and so on, and that you're looking forward to seeing her if she fancies trying it the new way.

We find Christmas Day very much easuer now we plan to eat at about 5ish. We have most of the day to ourselves and then people arrive at 4ish for presents and then dinner.

It means we can go out for a walk in the morning and have a bit of chilled out family time. It's a perfect balance.

I couldn't leave someone alone on Christmas Day, although I do see the point that other siblings should host MIL too.

Tbh I wouldn't class 16 as a 'childhood Christmas' really anymore, and your parents/MIL won't be around forever so I would still have everyone round. Then have boxing day just you.

I know we should all be able to do as we please, but in reality the hurt feelings over this one day are not worth it in the long run, especially if it leaves a 78-year-old sat home alone on Christmas Day.

I saw the suggestion that someone made and you thought might be a workable solution to the situation you now find yourself in @openjoy and I'd like to suggest another to you.

Not sure how close/far away your husband's siblings live to their mother but if I were him, I'd be telling them that this is the way that this Christmas will be. If it works out, it may be something that can continue for future years but for Christmas 2024 what he's to suggest is that they look after getting their mother Christmas Day Breakfast. She isn't going to be left alone because they will visit her in her house in the morning and leave by 12 noon (they get the rest of the day without their mother too).
He & the kids will visit and bring her a plate of Christmas Day dinner that she can either eat straightaway as it will be hot or can be reheated easily later on that day. They'll stay for about 2 hours or so and then they return home to have the rest of their celebrations at home and can be relaxed.
She gets her drinks herself, she has full use of her own telly to watch what she wants, when she wants and not be waited on (everyone gets their own drinks in our house and in any house that I visit over Christmas/New Year).
You can all pop in on Boxing Day but it will be a passing visit of maybe an hour.
Or something along those lines where there are other family members involved in looking in on her so she isn't alone for the day but that she isn't taking over a whole day.

Grandma is 78 and you get on well. She obviously enjoys coming to you for Xmas. Realistically are the grandparents likely to have many more Xmases when they are fit and well to come? I’d enjoy it while it lasts. Can you not have your own family Christmas Day in the run up to Xmas - a Sunday or whatever beforehand or New Years Day? TBH I’d be disappointed in my children for voting this way. It is a bit thoughtless/ uncaring. I have no parents but I encourage my children; to enjoy every visit and day they have with my husbands parents. Would you really enjoy Xmas knowing that the GP(s) were either at home or at someone else’s who was reluctant to have them?

Please don’t leave the 78 year old on her own at Christmas. The kids have decades ahead of them

Absolutely reasonable to want time as a family. I would just have MIL as couldn't leave her to be alone but ask her to arrive in time for Christmas dinner and aim to have it a bit later, maybe 3ish and ask her to arrive no earlier than 1, if she tends to stay late, she still has loads of time with you.

Would also be livid at the sibling refusing to ever have MIL. How truly selfish.

As a granny, that wouldn’t concern me at all. I’d look forward to seeing you all on Boxing Day and make the most of a Christmas Day pleasing myself.

It does seem a mean thing to do especially quite close to Christmas when it's getting a bit late to make plans with any friends if you have never spent Christmas with them before.

Following on from my reply above. I def would continue to have the GP(s) but I would make the day less formal/GP centred. I wouldn’t be in hostess with mostest mode more take it as you find us. I’d also hide the remote- I’d find that a little annoying.

RaininSummer · Today 22:22
**
It does seem a mean thing to do especially quite close to Christmas when it's getting a bit late to make plans with any friends if you have never spent Christmas with them before

Why on earth is it mean? OP has hosted MIL for 15 years. It’s only mid-november, plenty of time to make other plans.

She’s had a good go on it! 15 years of no hosting and being demanding. This could go on for many years more -my maternal grandmother lived to 96. Not your fault your husbands sibling is so selfish. It’s time to draw a line in the sand or this will just go on and on. I hosted last year and yeah spend too much time cooking, tidying up and organising. I would have loved more with my children. I’m not going to be hosting for the foreseeable. Well, until everyone l hosted last year reciprocates. Our house isn’t going to turn into the default Christmas hosting place

If I'm reading that right, visit in the morning and visit in the afternoon with a hot dinner, that seems a huge amount of faff.
When are the people taking the plate round planning on eating their food. How is Op meant to keep the rest of the dinner warm?

Op another way is Christmas dinner later and have Boxing Day as a pj day no visitors!

Jesus, that's cold!

"Someone will come round with a plate of food you can heat in the microwave. But don't worry, you have full use of your own TV."

Merry Christmas, one and all.

I am so pleased you appear to be thinking about a reasonable compromise, OP. Can't believe how mean some people on this thread are.

Offering hospitality to those with no other choices is kind of... The meaning of Christmas, isn't it?

Imagine being 78 and suddenly told you are not invited for Christmas day this year, when you always have been and it means spending the day alone. Would being invited the day before or after make up for this clear message that you are not someone your child and grandchildren want to see on the day?
Sorry but I don't think you should do it. I'd tell the children that in some ways you would also like the day just with the five of you, but you've been thinking about Granny being alone and have changed your mind. And ask them what would make up for it - maybe a day out for the five of you the following day, or opening your special presents together on Christmas eve, or whatever it takes.

’It could be MIL’s last year.’

You’ll also say that in 2050.

She’s not more important than your children. Give the poor little sods a decent relaxed Xmas for once without dancing about over the demanding.

Wish everyone would put the violins away. I’m a granny. A quiet Christmas Day wouldn’t bother me in the least.

Your family must be different to mine. I think it's very mean spirited and most people will have planned their Christmas already.

Your family must be different to mine. I think it's very mean spirited and most people will have planned their Christmas already.

I firmly believe, always have, that Christmas Day is all about the little ones and their parents. why is that mean spirited? They spend several days with us afterwards. Really, no big deal.

Any less cold than 'hey kids, who cares you've never had a nice family Christmas, get back in your box, your opinion, despite having asked for it, means nothing'?