To judge friend's approach to Christmas?

[NoisyDenimShaker]

I'm desperately trying not to judge my friend, who keeps talking about how much she loves spending Christmas only with her husband and kids. I don't have kids, so perhaps I just don't understand. But I feel I've watched her turn into someone I'm finding more and more difficult to respect. Here's the situation: Her parents are dead now, but when they both had terminal cancer, a few years apart, she wouldn't invite them for Christmas. Even when her mum was terminal and widowed, she wouldn't invite her. The mum did have a companion, but she was desperate to spend Christmas with her daughter and four young grandchildren the last two Christmases of her life. She was terminally ill for both of those Christmases, although the cancer hadn't yet overwhelmed her and she could have travelled. Anyway, it didn't happen, because she wasn't invited.

My friend also has a sister whose husband had an affair, and the sister will be alone this year since the parents are gone and her husband is with OW, but she won't invite her sister. (When I say alone, she'll probably have invitations since the sister is cool, but she has no family left to spend it with.) Neither will she inviter her in-laws, who live nearby and are old and one is terminally ill.

She gets on fine with all those family members, whom I know are deeply hurt, as our families know each other and go way back. What she says to me is that she just wants to spend Christmas with her husband and kids.

So my question for all the parents here is this: When you have kids, is it understandable to just spend it with the husband and kids. even when various family members are dying and/or alone? That they grow up so fast, and in the blink of an eye, they'll have their own partners and Christmas will change forever? So you want to have Christmases alone with your spouse and kids while you can?

I'm just really trying to understand, because friend keeps talking with glee about how she's having the Christmas she wants, and I'm having difficulty not judging.

I don't have kids, so perhaps my friend is being totally reasonable and it's what all parents want - just to be alone with their spouse and kids at Christmas? Maybe my friend is not being unreasonable?

Apparently folk are trolls if they don't agree that it's ok for OP to judge her friend.

It’s not about the hosting etc; OP is questioning the depth of her friend’s kindness and thought for others. Her moral code

Respectfully, so what? My point was that having a baby doesn’t turn you into a completely alien individual to your non-parent self. I have a child and we have always hosted my parents and siblings on Christmas Day. It’s way weirder that you are so exercised about your friend not wanting to invite people at Christmas, or that her family members are apparently coming to you to wail about their hurt.

@ImTheOnlyUpsyOne this is so true. So much pressure is put on that one day. It’s how you are all the other days that matter. Actually, Xmas can be a nice day to be alone. Lots of good tv, family and friends calling you, presents to open etc. It’s in the depths of January and February, people most often need company.

I had v serious depression over a few Xmases, partly triggered by father’s sudden death at Xmas. No one knew or noticed. The kids were young and a real handful, I was perimenopausal, in an abusive relationship I was financially struggling to leave, in a super high-pressure job which was busiest at Xmas, no extended family due to other people’s rifts and the rest living abroad.

It was before online shopping, so I’d be exhausted before I even got to Xmas Day, with all the traipsing round shops, wrapping for several DC, sending cards and posting stuff abroad, school events, kids/me having colds/bugs, work stress and events, seeing friends. For a few years, I only made it out of bed on Xmas Day for long enough to make dinner, then crawled back in it. Life’s never perfect. No point pretending it is.

I'd be inclined to question OPs 'moral code' just as much tbh.

I judge. I’m hosting Christmas this year including a widowed relative because neither of his children will have him to stay or go to him.

With one the situation is complicated and I understand but the other one says her 11 yr old HAS to be skiing on Christmas Day. if one of my kids made a bratty statement like that I’d tell them they could wait and go skiing after Christmas – but no, this is apparently impossible. It’s not as if she’s fallen out with her dad and he is absolutely lovely so to leave him alone (she had no idea I’d step in) seems cruel, especially when he can only have a few years left. I mentioned this to another friend who also has a lonely widowed mother but she insisted it was also more important she and her family went skiing than spent Christmas day with her mother, even though her mother has nowhere else to go. I find it incredibly selfish.

Some of us are telling the OP to stop judging, me, you and definitely some other folk. 👍

She sounds horribly selfish. I wonder how she will feel if her children and future sons/daughters-in-law feel the same.

What about OP's moral code where she sticks her friends' business all over social media and invites the world to judge and criticise?

Why do you judge though? To feel superior? To feel like a living martyr?

On the face it it is does seem odd and mean. But there must be more to the story

Well I have three children and never would I ever leave a parent or sibling to spend Christmas alone, terminally ill or otherwise. So YANBU OP. Your friend does not sound like a good person.

Why is it selfish to do what SHE and her own little family want to do for Christmas?

I admire her.

So many women martyr themselves for Christmas instead of choosing what's best for them and their own.

there is an increasing focus on 'having it my way'.
Good,* *let's put an end to womens martyrdom. It's about time.

Well considering how unkind OP comes over in this thread - both to her " friend" and to other posters - I don't think she appears to have much thought for others.

And certainly not much in the way of moral code if judging your friend, gossiping about her, and being rude and unpleasant to others are examples of it.

I know; very grim indeed. I try to make excuses for her when turning it over in my mind, but I've been alarmed by her behaviour in the past few years and am questioning the friendship. I know her family and they all seemed nice to me over the decades, and I know people can be very different behind closed doors, but I find it hard to believe that both parents, both in-laws, and the sister were/are all so objectionable as to be excluded when ill/divorced etc etc. So none of them ever get/got to spend Christmas with their GCs/nephews.

@Nolegusta Why? Because her friend’s unkindness isn’t sitting well with her? The “friend” sounds cold if she’s able to turn her back on terminally ill extended family and carry on without giving a toss

Exactly; thank you.

You may think both these people are lovely. Their children may experience them otherwise. My mother is generally considered ‘lovely’. She was nonetheless an appalling parent who left me with ongoing issues I’m addressing in therapy in my 50s. I do still host her for Christmas, but I don’t in the least judge my next sister for having nothing to do with her at any time of year.

You can’t experience anyone else’s relationship.

I know. It's absolutely shocking to stick up for oneself when called "vile" etc etc for no reason, isn't it!

Stop it.
Sometimes people just prefer a smaller christmas celebration. It doesn't have to be about anyone being 'objectional', though it could be.
Do you judge every aspect of other's lives or just at christmas?

It’s an anonymous forum

Why is it selfish for her to do what SHE wants, regardless of the hurt, pain and loneliness it causes to others close to her? I mean that’s literally the definition of selfish is it not?

I am not going to judge, i am just going to answer the OP with my thoughts

i love spending Christmas with just my children, my brother lives a few hours away and because its easier my dad comes here every year, he is no trouble except he wants to make a cup of tea at the exact same time that my dh is finishing Christmas dinner and there are eleventy billion pans around the work top and everything is coming out at the same time….we move the kettle now 😀

even if it was not our habit to have parents round if they had a terminal illness and wanted to come i would absolutely agree

if i want to be invited to my childrens houses when they have Christmas with their own families i need to model that for them…my dad is here twice a week every week and on the odd occasion when i whinge about it i try and be really careful how i say it (my children are between 21 and 25)

I do the same as your friend and spend Christmas with just my husband and son. Though our house is really too small to host and we don’t want to cause issues/jealousy by going to one set of parents and not the other. Both sets of parents have other children that will be spending Christmas with them as they don’t have their own families yet, so nobody is alone. If anyone was going to be alone I would let them spend Christmas with us if they really wanted to, even though it wouldn’t be my preference. Your friend does sound pretty selfish.

Her parents told my parents. (Well, her mum told my mum.) Like I said, they were all close.