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??

Sibling should absolutely step up but if it were me I wouldn’t be able to leave her alone.

@openjoy

i think you have to be honest with your kids that that grandma would be alone on Christmas Day if not with you all…that could well change how they feel about it.

Your last post makes it clear there is a third option: Host MIL (and your parents) but don’t let the entire day revolve around them.

Your DH needs to tell his mum in advance that you’re having a TV free Christmas (except between X and Y time when you’ll all watch a family movie*) and if she wants to watch her programmes then she can go to another room with a tablet.

*if you want

Jeez, she’s 78!! I’d think that would be pretty young to die, highly likely she’s got a few more christmases in her!

YANBU OP, she has other children by the sounds of it so she can surely appreciate that it’s their turn.

Thank you for sharing this perspective.

I pick my mother up at about 11 and take her home again at about 6 or 7, she can then watch TV as she wants and our kids and Dh and I carry on with games until 11 or 12.
Maybe this would work for your family. I wouldn't want my mother to be alone.
I would have words with my sister if she had spent 15 years without hosting her own mother once. That is very selfish.

No, just don’t seek out drama and problems.

Life would be a bit boring if we only ever had ‘pleasant’ people to deal with. I couldn’t care less if a family members ideal Xmas is sitting in front of the tv. Leave them to it. Many more family members can join in …or not.

The martyrs are the ones who make a huge deal about Xmas day.
We don’t, we have an open house, plenty drink and people are more than welcome to muck in….or not.

At 78 it could be....or she might have another 15, long outlasting the years where all the children want to come home on Christmas Day.

Our Christmas Day often revolves around our guests. My DH and I often feel hosting over takes our family time.

I don’t get this. She’s not a stranger she’s a family member. You don’t need to put a big show and dance to host. The most you’d do is get her drinks and serve food. What else is there to “host” for one person?

Can she not just come for a couple of hours for Christmas dinner then return home, then you can have ‘family of 5 family time’. Why is it so complicated?

No, you can't leave your MIL alone on Christmas. She hasn't done anything wrong.

Your kids don't rule the roost and it's more important to model kindness to them. Along with the importance of warmly inviting people into your home. It's Christmas - it's about family and goodwill. You'd just be being needlessly cruel to an elderly woman. If you're hosting, then you're hosting! So host!
Have your chill day with just the nuclear family on Boxing Day.

I’m a great believer in the whole “it’s just a day” thing and can’t really understand why people fetishise it so much. It wouldn’t bother me to work that day and it wouldn’t bother my kids to “do” it on Boxing Day or whatever. But that’s a choice. The psychology of being on your own on Christmas Day because you have no place at anyone’s table must be absolutely bloody awful. And I would feel awful to do that to an elderly relative who is in all probability fully expecting the invitation to come. If she’s difficult, alter the format of the day a bit. “Kids are a bit older, so want to do things a bit differently and have a lie in (or whatever). We’ll eat at 4 and pick you up at 2.30” (or whatever suits). If she then doesn’t want to come, then that’s fair enough - she’s been invited and chosen not to accept. But to leave her in the lurch seems a bit awful.

OP and her DH asked their children what they would prefer. The kids didn't independently just say 'we hate our grandparents, don't invite them for Christmas'. They gave an honest answer to a question. OP says that her MIL can be difficult on Christmas Day so maybe she spoils it for the kids.

Just realised how many typos so annoying.

But yes the grandparents here seem to have a very set vision of how Christmas Day should be where as we are much more go with the flow.

The children don’t want to take stocking downstairs to open, then open one present then have a full sit down breakfast. Then full smart attire, Then a few more presents before it’s time to play a game. Then a walk. The. A few more presents. Then dinner which seems to take ages. Then a game. Then a very very old tv show. Then a couple more presents. Then a viennetta. Then a game. Then a walk. Then bed.

They want to open stockings, play a little. Come down open presents. Eat. Play. Watch a movie maybe. Play. Eat dinner. Walk maybe. Suff faces with chocolate. Video call relatives and friends. Pass out into Christmas Day coma.

tricky situation. Personally, if it was me I’d have said you are more than welcome to come for a few hours however I’m not hosting a big dinner etc, I want to spend quality time with the kids so I’m just putting on some nibbles. I’d hate the thought of anyone spending time alone at Christmas

It’s beyond me too! It was just a routine I’ve fallen into.

I don’t think my resentment is at her, it’s at her other children that could take a turn in hosting her. She hasn’t done anything wrong for me to blame her for anything. She’s been here each year on invitation and she’s enjoyed her day how she would like to.

Or people that think that sometimes 'obligation' isn't wrong and thinking of others doesn't automatically make you an inveterate 'people pleaser'.

I do think (unless NC that we do have an obligation to family.

I also don't see why it takes two adults to run round her to the detriment of anyone else.

If she's a guest, nothing stops one of the kids popping to get her a drink or a snack or she waits till they're served to everyone

Absolutely this. I think back on Christmas as a child, my mum hosted gran every year as she was an only child and we were all she had. She ruined Christmas. Mum and dad would get stressed about it at least a week before and a day after. Because she was awful. Bloody awful. Whining moaning miserable and manipulative plus enforcing her version of christianity on everyone. Wasn't her fault she had a mental health condition but she was also a bitter old woman, I don't think she ever got over her cheating husband and chose to take it out on everyone around her.

But she’s not leaving MIL alone - she has other children to go to by the sounds of it, so theyre leaving MIL alone. Why have they been able to refuse for years but OP isn’t allowed to refuse this one time? For all we know MIL might not even mind being alone!

It's dh's sibling's turn to host mil. You're entitled to one Christmas alone with your kids

JFC a 16 year old, would want their grandparent alone on Christmas Day?

I be absolutely gutted if my kids had this view and didn’t see the bigger picture.

I.e Said something like…. I’d love it to be just us, but we can’t leave granny by herself on Christmas Day.

You shouldn't have asked the children IMO. I know now you've said you won't leave MIL alone, but if you had gone ahead with that and the children later realised she was sitting home alone they might have felt to blame. That's not fair on them. Don't ask children to make adult decisions.

Oooo @minipie LOGIC on Mumsnet?! You rebel!

Very difficult situation but I have to say I would feel uncomfortable leaving MIL at home, it is likely to upset her. Xmas causes all sorts of decisions and people feeling that they have been hard done by. Could you speak to your kids and suggest that Boxing Day is the day when u will be a family of 5?
No easy answers.

Agree that 11 to 11 is far too long. Can you pick her up an hour or so before lunch and then she can get a taxi back earlier in the evening?

Yes sometimes we need to be kind.