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??

I get it, OP. She sounds very similar to my dad, he's not exactly good/interesting company which can make the day a bit strained. Fortunately we take turns with my sibling each year to host him for Christmas. My dad doesn't live close by though so when he does come for Christmas its a 3 day stay at least which I find tricky, whereas my sibling lives locally so my dad just joins them for part of the day which makes it easier - maybe part of your desire for it to be just your nuclear family on the day is because she's there for 12 hours straight which is a lot, how about inviting her to join you from say 1pm to 7pm so that you at least get the morning and the evening without guests?

I agree with this.

Also, do her other kid(s) not see her at all over Christmas?

Yes me too.

Why would it bother you so much?

Why would it bother you so much?

I know the question wasn’t directed at me, but it would definitely bother me just as much. Whether we agree with it or not, we are bombarded with images and ideas of Christmas for two months beforehand every year. There is a distinct expectation that it is a time that one spends with “loved ones” and that anyone who is alone is to be pitied. There are various “alone at Christmas” charity efforts set up specifically to address this. So if must be the most enormous psychological blow for someone who’s been widowed and on her own for most of the time, to think that she isn’t anyone’s “loved one”. As I alluded to upthread, she probably doesn’t think of herself as selfish/a bad guest, especially if relations with the family are decent otherwise. And, if she usually goes for Christmas, she will see a lack of invitation not as a failure to include her, but as a deliberate act of exclusion by the very people that she regards as her loved ones. I would think, if I were in the MIL’s shoes, it would bother me a great deal indeed.

Have you ever spent Christmas Day on your own? I have - by choice - and never again if there was an alternative. It’s utterly joyless cooking a dinner by and for yourself, no matter how nice the food is. I’d stocked up on chocolate, cheese, decent wine, Baileys and a stack of new books and it was still miserable. I was so pleased when it was bedtime.

I suppose I'm thinking in Op's case-why wouldn't the MIL want her son & DIL to have a Christmas with just their kids?

Why would she begrudge them that?

I think a lot can also depend on how much you see each other & Christmas if really is a rare chance to see some people.

Plus what is happening Christmas Eve & Boxing Day for you.

I think you are setting a very poor example to tour children. I have invited an elderly neighbour before now who would otherwise have been alone.Your eldest is 16, surely she can be involved in the hosting , it should be a team effort. I feel if you are feeding and watering everyone else, then one extra person doesnt make much difference. I wouldnt let one person dictate the TV schedule though. Although we hardly watch TV on xmas day. Do you not do charades etc?

The people bringing the hot plate around would leave after an hour or so visit on Christmas Day to return to the OP and have their dinner and could change into their PJ's and have a really relaxing rest of their Christmas Day.

Visit in the morning is done by the lazy arsed BiL (not the OP or her DH).
Visit in the afternoon is done by the OP's DH and their kids.
No visits in the evening as Granny is left to her own devices.

Having your two adult children and their children visit you, provide food for you and spend time with you is cold???

Of course the tiny bit about having to reheat a plate of Christmas Dinner was what was picked up on. That suggestion was purely if the Granny was too full from the breakfast the BiL provided.

Oh - and the Bil and his family and any other siblings that the OP's DH has, them not stepping up isn't cold???

Give me a break!

Why is it accepted that the other kids can have Christmas Day as they want but Op can't?

What happened before you started inviting everyone?

Do you invite or has it now gone on so long that they just expect?

The point of Christmas dinner isn't being fed, it's sitting round the table with your loved ones.

So yes, it is cold.

Does the OP get any credit for the 15 years that she has hosted both sets of parents? She will have done this with new borns, toddlers, primary aged children and teenagers. It sounds as though neither her parents nor her MIL have offered to host, even when they were much younger, yet OP is the one who is setting a poor example? Her MIL is a selfish guest who needs to be waited on, takes over the TV and pays no attention to her grandchildren. OP says she wouldn't want to play a board game with her grandchildren so it's unlikely that she would be up for charades.

At what age can older people no longer be criticised for their poor behaviour and must be prioritised above younger members of the family?

I agree with @PicturePlace . You reap what you sow. If you tell your children that "our little family comes first and we don't invite wider family if we don't want to", then they'll have no qualms about doing the same to you

OP - this post is in response to the people I'm replying to, not you. Fair play to you for hosting for 15 years. I think in your shoes, a compromise of MIL visiting for part of the day would work

Reap what is sown. I’d look at my mum playing skivvy with 15 years with never a year off despite knowing we all wanted a relaxed Christmas as a huge I’m not fucking doing that at all. Wouldn’t want it to become an obligation so I’d be the BIL fucking off no invites ever incase I became obliged though guilt.

Op and her dh and her children have done 15 years of Christmas basically how her mil wants and she’s not allowed 1 year off.

I know what one isn’t thinking of others and it’s certainly not op who gives up her livingroom, tv and Christmas Day for 12 hours every year.

How will you feel in future when “our little family” is no more and you find yourself in the position of your mother, not invited to your children’s Christmas?.

At what age can older people no longer be criticised for their poor behaviour and must be prioritised above younger members of the family?

I would say at any age, if the behaviour merits it. If she got drunk and aggressive/ made racist remarks/ insulted the OP? I’d be the first to say don’t invite them. But the OP said upfront that her MIL is lovely and there’s no malice from anyone. She’s just not the life and soul of the party. You could argue that my own MIL comes in and expects to be waited on; however, I bet if you asked her, she’d say she was trying to be polite and not interfere and would be horrified to be thought of as a selfish guest. She wouldn’t enjoy playing charades, but because she’s very diffident and would find it embarrassing, not because she’s selfish. Seems pretty awful to cause hurt and disappointment to someone on what is, culturally, a day with huge expectations just because someone isn’t great fun or the best guest. Especially when that person is a close relative with nowhere else to go.

Sorry I disagree. OP has set a fabulous example for 15 years.

Now it's time to set the example that sometimes it's ok to prioritise yourself. After all, what example have the other members of the extended family set?

Tea time invitation OP, will solve a lot. Would that work?

I was that child in that situation in the 80s and hated it. Slept on the floor for years whilst grandparents took my bed. Couldn't play with new toys, be noisy, watch tv as had to have the queen on, coronation street and food has to be served at a certain time. That was until the year my parents said to my grandparents that they do Christmas pudding later around 6 pm not at lunchtime as no one is hungry then. There was www3 from my grandad over that. Next year it was just our family of four. Bless! Looking back I don't think my parents enjoyed it either but it's what you did. Please respect your childrens choice for one year.

My grandfather ruled Christmas. My parents gave over their bedroom. They slept in mine. I slept with my two brothers on the floor . My grandfather heard us whispering on Xmas eve in bed. Stormed in like the wrath of god. Terrified us.

No-one stood up to him. My grandmother was a darling but never argued with him.

Thank god it wasn't every year. He was shared out between his four children and we lived the furthest away.

I don’t think that Christmas Day is all about kids. Christmas Eve and Christmas morning absolutely yes but after that it’s all about the wider family.

If I was the OP I would host but do things my way and my families way and the grandparents would just have to row in. I think it’s sad that grandparents are seen as a chore at Christmas. My own mother is far from easy but I would never dis invite to be ‘just us’ . The OP should also be aware that she’s setting an example and she may well be left alone in years to come

You are cooking the dinner anyway so what’s all this stress around hosting. I don’t get it. The older members just row in and generally sit in a chair, play the odd games, yes they get to watch the queens speech etc but isn’t that part of it all.

My DH grew up in a household where Grandparents and extended family were always there for Christmas, the type of people who were ‘far from easy’. He hated it and said it was noisy, he didn’t get to play with his presents and Christmas dinner was like feeding time at the Zoo 😆.
As soon as we lived together he said he didn’t want any of them for Christmas Day because he didn’t want Christmases like his childhood because he hated it. So it doesn’t always work that people will repeat history.

well you are a very different person to me if you would be happy for your lovely mother to sit on her own at home on christmas day excluded, while children and grandchildren have fun without her. I think her children, who are old enough to know better, must be quite unpleasant to 'vote' for this too. I think the Op may well have decades of lonely christmasses in front of her, having modelled to her kids it is fine to exclude people at your convenience!