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??

This.

Jesus. Merry fucking Christmas.

This. Amd let dh " host" her whole you spend time with your dc if that's what you want.

If I was the 16 year old, I would presume I was being asked because granny had lots of different options. If I later found out that she had been sat alone on Christmas day, it would break my heart, and I could never forgive the cruelty of my parents, and I would resent them hugely for having made me a part of it.

That is just shit stirring. What s horrible person you are.

You have left the change a bit late.

You also will cause tension if you reinvite MIL and not reinvite your parents.

Would changing the routine and eating a later lunch be helpful? You could all meet a little later and skip the evening meal together.
Have something that you are doing for the evening.
Do the kids want to have a movie night?
Go to a twilight walk on a nearby beach?

Also research and find something interesting for the kids to do on Christmas Eve. A concert?
Get the kids to brain storm ideas that don't reuire their grandparents eating Christmas Dinner alone.

Make plans for next Christmas in January next year.
Enlist the assistance of your siblings.

I think the total opposite. I think teaching each other that we have obligations to each other is lovely, and that teaching your kids to be cold and excluding is what will lead to them having no problem in ignoring you at the slightest inconvenience when you are an elderly person.

The thing with this is that the parents (in the plural) have each other. I'm not sure that popping round for bucks fizz and mince pies for an hour and then being booted out to go and have a sad ready meal and watch TV on your own for the rest of the day is any better than just being on your own all day.

If I were the OP I think I would back down and let her come all day as usual if the alternative was her being on her own but I'd be pissed off with my DH for not reading his siblings the riot act at least ten years ago and letting us get into a situation where the expectation is that we will host at Christmas and if ever we don't want to do it we're the bad guys because now granny will be on her own.

it’s to be an engaged, generous family member and a human being

Well quite. But the OP and her family are not being this right now.

This.

OP you're the parent and your kids are learning from you. You need to teach them empathy and I'd go as far as say you're shooting yourself in the foot here. One day it's going to be you who's 80, and behind closed doors your kids will be tossing a coin on who gets to have you for christmas.

They'll remember these days of when you where ok with leaving out grandma, so they'll just presume you'll be OK to be left out too.

You're being cruel to leave her out, literally missing out the whole point of Christmas and raising your kids to be inconsiderate.

My DCs first comment would be 'but what about grandma?', and that's when he was primary age. I'd be mortified if they were 16 and not able to realise the implications of not inviting MIL

I think most of the situation is the fault of your siblings. What was Christmas like when you were growing up? What behaviour did your parents model for you re grandparents?
This isn't just about Christmas either - do your siblings contribute all year round in terms of engaging with their parents? It's a 'cats in the cradle' situation. I believe firmly we need to role model the behaviours towards grandparents that we want to experience when we are older.
Compromise in timing is probably your best solution. Still host but give yourselves some time during the day for just your family.
I don't know what your sibling relationships are like, but I would be having firm words - as like I say, it's entirely their fault (IMHO)!

I agree with this. Asking the children for input when they haven’t actually understood the situation seems really unfair.

OP, I do think you’ve come at all this backwards and you need to take ownership of your decisions. It’s ok to want a smaller Christmas but claiming to make it all about what the kids want when they have no idea of the repercussions of their decisions is not on.

Really your DH needs to address this with his siblings and get a workable plan together. But at the moment you both seem to be trying to use your kids to justify what you want to do. The adults need to step up and take responsibility.

It's interesting how many people on this thread seem to find the idea of social obligation intolerable. The selfishness and unkindness is quite something. I can't imagine a situation when I would exclude my own mother (same age and similar situation to the OPs MIL) and crack on merrily with Christmas Day knowing she was at home by herself having been rejected by her family. Most people wouldn't leave their dog alone for more than a few hours any day of the year, yet seem to have no issue with dumping Grandma on the one day of the year that focuses on family because they can't be bothered to make the social effort. It's the modern way, I suppose.

This. I’m not sure what they’re teaching in school but if this is the attitude already then us younger generations when we get old are going to be lonely and dumped for sure, and it won’t just be Christmas!!

I can assure you, as a teacher, what we're trying to teach them in school are decent values. But you can see from this thread the values are instilled at home.

I don’t think your premise is unreasonable - I think your siblings are more unreasonable for insisting on spending it alone with their partner every year, that’s not very Christmassy and they should host too.

What is unreasonable is you tried to change it too late in the day. Conversations that fundamentally change Christmas need to happen almost straight after the last Christmas or latest in the summer. My BIL tried to suggest we do secret Santa this year…last week!

So I think you should suck it up for this year and bring it up calmly in January when everyone has time to get their head around the change for Xmas 2025.

Yeah but you have, based on your children saying, without context, they want it to be the family of 5 started a thread about it.

You are considering giving them there request. But there request was not made with facts.

Ridiculous.

Or she hangs out at theirs but on their terms 🤷‍♀️ No big dinner, serve yourself tea and snacks - just a chill day.

On the other hand, maybe it’s also worth looking at what everyone wants from the day and making a compromise. OP says Grandma lets TV direct her day and wants to be waited on. Maybe it’s time for her to accept that that’s not very sociable and maybe her being there for 12 hours, watching telly, isn’t necessary- she could come for a shorter period that’s more sociable, and do her TV watching at her house. OP has said a compromise will be made so nobody is excluded. But it’s not ok that the host family never get to do what they want in terms of directing/designing the day.

The siblings should step up but if they won’t they won’t. How will the kids feel about their gran being alone? Do you live close enough to have a late Xmas meal, say 6 pm? I expect you’ll have many more Xmas’s with your eldest. It’s a dilemma but for me the worst outcome would be a 78 year old alone so if it was my decision I’d go on inviting I would hope the kids wouldn’t want their gran to be alone.

If your MIL will be on her own I would invite her - it’s in the spirit, and I hate thinking of people on their own.

‘Requiring hosting’ is on her - she can lift a finger or just chill with the tv, maybe explain you want to slow the pace down this year and have more time with the kids.
I accept it’s annoying for your family - your siblings in law should do their part.

I don’t find social obligation intolerable at all.

But I do find one-way social obligation that goes on like that indefinitely for years intolerable. Relationships are the responsibility of both parties and we should be modeling that for our children.

This has gone on all day for every Christmas for 15 years - that’s a lot of one sided accommodation. Butting some limits on it to acknowledge that other people’s enjoyment of the holiday matters as well is reasonable. OP has already said she’ll look for a way to have MIL for part of the day - that’s a kind, suitable compromise.

Your husband needs to have the awkward conversation with MIL. Don't see why it should fall to you.