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??

@Grammarnut that’s the point though she doesn’t play games etc with the children she just watches her tv programs and ignores the kids

Some very hysterical and dramatic responses here. The President-Elect of the USA is 78 to put this in context. My DM and MIL are also 78 and if their children weren't hosting them on Christmas day they would have other options - friends and wider family. I wonder why the MIL doesn't but if you've spent 15 years expecting other people to lay on entertainment and socialising for you, I'm not surprised.

The OP and her kids have hosted all the parents for 15 years. Her kids have NEVER known a Christmas without extended family. They are perfectly reasonable to want one Christmas with just mum, dad and siblings.

FWIW I have never hosted - not because I'm evil and selfish but because I have a big family with various branches, most of whom do shift work around Christmas (NHS, care work and engineering being the main jobs in the family) who all live 150 miles away in different directions and it's not logistically feasible to do so. As a result we've always had Christmas just the four of us. Neither DM nor DMIL are particularly upset by the lack of our presence on 25/12 as we do lots of things around Christmas/New Year with them and throughout the rest of the year. My mum did shift work on Christmas day for most of our early adulthood.

This TV ad vision of extended families gathered round the Queen's speech is just one example of the pressures put on women (who do the lion's share of cooking and hosting) to accommodate everyone and put their own needs last. Good for you OP for putting your foot down.

@FKAT their circumstances are wildly different to you. For 15 years they have hosted the MIL, it is clearly the tradition. Then suddenly you pull the rug, because you ask your teenagers advice on the matter and surprise, surprise they make a wildly selfish teenage decision. You can't explain it any other way.

So grandma is home alone, or perhaps thrown a bone so we all don't feel so bad about it.

And all this about hosting.. So Op is no longer going to cook Christmas lunch then? How hard can it be to lay an extra place at the table and make someone a few drinks.

I find it quite shocking that 70% of people who have voted think that it is ok that this 78 y/o woman is left home alone on Christmas Day.
After all she is family. But I am quite an emotional person so I asked my 22 y/o DS his view. He was also shocked at the percentage and his words were “that would never happen in our family”

Op-is there a reason no one else hosts their parents?

That’s such a guilt Tripping thing to say it could be anyone’s last Christmas!!

I can never understand all these posts where people don’t want to be around their family at Christmas. I wish I HAD family to be around! Literally just me, DP and my mum and dad.

Don’t leave her on her own. Do a family Christmas, even if you cut it a bit shorter (start later/finish earlier) and have your family time on Xmas even and Boxing Day.

The older you are the more it’s likely to be. You’re unlikely to have many more when you’re 78.

I would also say it sets a precedent for Christmas, when you are in grandma's shoes. I hope you would be ok with your children taking a similar stance and leaving you home alone - after all they have been raised to have boundaries, not become people pleasers and to prioritise their own immediate family enjoyment.

So the 15 years of OP hosting her MIL and waiting on her hand and foot is not setting a precedent for Christmas but the one year OP considers not inviting her as she is such hard work and spoils the day for her children is setting a precedent and she will be punished by her children leaving her at home alone?

Also, if you could be bothered to read all the OP's posts, you would see that she is going to host her MIL this year as she doesn't want her to be on her own and it is clear that her DH's sibling is never going to step up.

Maybe the lesson that OP will take from this is to not be an unpleasant guest.

Mine too. Plus, they prefer the greater level of parental input when it is just us.

If the OP's oldest is 16, they can help with hosting, as can the other two possibly. It sounds like the MIL doesn't have to stay the night, so that's one level of hosting not needed. Just change the format of the day to focus on what the children want to do. On Christmas Day, we have always had brunch, gone for a walk (pre-Covid to friends for drinks), had coffee and cake, then opened presents and then had dinner in the evening. No TV, because there's never time. The children have each contributed something to dinner, from peeling veg to making cauliflower cheese to making and elaborate croquembouche for dessert and it's all been quite chilled. With grandparents around, they've just been told to relax, have a drink, read a book, listen to the radio, play a board game with their grandchildren, come on a walk with us, but not to get involved with the cooking. We have to have them stay over, and this year, with a full house, with adult children's partners, DH and I are giving up our bed for my parents and sleeping on the sofa bed. We have to do this, as whoever is sleeping on the sofa bed will be disturbed by Santa.

she referred to the GP as being 'lovely and kind'.

But in later posts she says that she expects to be waited on hand and foot, takes over the TV and ignores her grandchildren. So, not the nicest guest or grandmother.

Just thinking and reading on the news the bold Tesco have decided to upset the Wee Frees and open on Sundays. Ekkk!

In the past, Sunday was a family day all over the UK, few people worked or their Sunday hours were limited. Sunday lunch was often a big dinner with Grandparents invited. Or the family going to Grannies.

Christmas Day always has a Sunday feeling to me. Is the big desire to have a quiet nuclear family Christmas without guests a part of symptom of families not having as much downtime and alone time as they used to? Or something to do with just not being as close as they were when they gathered together most weeks.

My Mum still does the Sunday lunch thing, however I can't see it carrying on to the next generation.

It's a symptom of having to move away because of work and housing being much smaller.

You get this on every thread that mentions anyone over the age of 70. It could be their last……. 🎻
Being over a 70 ( I am) doesn’t give the right to ruin everyone’s Christmas.

I don't think it can be houses being smaller, houses built from the 1930s to 1980s probably only had one loo.
Bedrooms are smaller but generally kids aren't really expected to share rooms.

Living areas and kitchens probably aren't much different unless your comparing with mansions that few owned even back in the day.

People being further away maybe but Op can't be far from Granny.

For me , personally, it was because our Christmases were very party like with lots of people around, but the run to it(including my birthday was absolutely shit).

Parents, particularly mum , stressed out, trying to get everything done , making sure everything was cleaned and perfect. I had a long list of things I couldn't do in case something got dirtied/messed up. Not allowed to eat x or y because it's for Christmas. Being ignored, told to go away, shouted at etc. because they were too busy and shit needed done.

Then here come all these people , that were too many, too loud, too touchy, then eventually too drunk and I couldn't escape by going to my room or playing with my toys. Inevitably, at least one argument always ensued between guests. Then it continued between my parents. There was no joy, just stress and duty.

I chose to make our Christmas about DD and be very chill and easy (we wake when we want, stay in pjs as long as we want, eat what we want and when we want etc), not great Aunt Suzie who checks the bedrooms when she goes to the toilet so everything had to be immaculate.

I would not leave my 78yo parent to be alone on Christmas day.

We don’t so Sunday dinner and mostly when we do a roast it’s normally not on Sunday either. I want to relax on Sunday so want something quick and easy.

This

I think it’s pretty shitty to leave your MIL on her own.

How much focus and attention do teenage kids really need on Christmas Day? Come
off it OP.

I’m glad I’ve raised mine better. They’d never want to see their grandparent on their own just so we can all sit and stare at each other/ play scrabble all day

@openjoy so children are not getting the christmas they have asked for? that is a real shame because your eldest has spent every christmas of her life with her grandparents and never just had one with her parents and siblings!

Just as well that OP isn't going to do so then. And that her kids didn't plan to leave her alone either. They were asked a simple question. What would be their ideal. And they answered honestly.

Had they been asked if they'd still want that if it meant GM being alone all day, I imagine they would not have chosen for that to happen.