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?

In 1987, my lovely DM only 63, was told she had 6 months to live, just before Christmas in fact and she died in may the following year. I told my DKs, youngest was 5,that this would be nanny's last Christmas with us, I wanted it to be special. It was, still laugh now, because we were playing Trivial Pursuit, and Mum kept answering when it wasn't her turn!

I think it's the terminally ill part that has freaked me out.

It’s not about feeeling onligated though is it? It’s about not being a self-centred wanker and showing your loved ones a bit of compassion.

OP you write just like a journalist!
hmm…

All of these parents who have the mentality of "just me and my little family, don't need anybody else" end up isolated and lonely when their children grow old enough to spend time with their own friends. When her children are older and want to spend Christmas with their own partners and families they will be at a total loose end having excluded their wider family and friends.

I did provide that context; I said that our families are close and that we have all known each other going back to primary.

This is an extreme response - to call someone vile that you have never met.

She hasn’t come on and named her friend and said nasty things about her so is hardly “slagging her off”? She has stated the facts and that she is feeling she is judging her friend because of these facts. She is allowed to feel how she feels and she has come on here to ask others their opinion and get some perspective on the matter. That’s surely the point of an anonymous forum? And it’s definitely the point of AIBU board.

To me it’s selfish, I couldn’t imagine having Christmas knowing parents we on there own especially if terminally ill 💔 heck we once invited an elderly neighbour because I knew he would be on his own on Christmas

Why?

Then surely she is so excited because it is a rare day, getting to spend it exactly as she wants? I'd be happy for her. If she was a close friend I would have already talked the terminally ill parent situation with her and know her reasoning. Do you know that the sister wants an invite? I'm choosing to be alone for most of the day this Christmas. I don't want to go to the people's I've been invited to. I see a lot of my adult children and GC (they go to their dad's anyway) and like my day off on Christmas day. Christmas is a season, her in-laws don't get to demand the day.

Oh god! I'm definitely not a journalist, lol. I think a job like that would eat me alive!

How does a journalist write, anyway?!

According to your own posts op you have been friends with this woman and have known her family for decades - maybe you could invite them round for this lovely Xmas that you believe your ‘friend’ is denying them? Or as people say, mum and sister can have Christmas together and no one is alone then. I think you are mistaking being a mum in the real world with being an archetypical mother figure who nurtures and cares for all and has no feelings for herself about it in the process.

Here’s an idea, OP. Have a baby and see if it turns you from your public-spirited ‘invite everyone’ self to someone who says ‘I only need my own little family’, pulls up the drawbridge, and leaves a queue of terminally-ill and recently-separated relatives weeping on the street?

I never wanted to but travel logistics mean I've had to.
Also, some people's parents aren't nice people.

OP not everyone thinks like you.

Some people just cannot cope with losing someone from a terminal illness, to the extent they distance themselves. It doesn't make them evil, it's just their way of coping with death.

When you can accept that people have different perspectives and ways of dealing with life's challenges, you'll be a lot less judgemental and more kind to those who think and act differently.

I'd feel the same way op. There is a sense of obligation around Christmas and the idea of leaving someone alone or out of everything seems wrong.

On the other hand there are plenty of other times in the year when you can see family. New Year is one where we have an extra day off.....

Currently my family and I spend all our Christmases away with the rest of our close extended family. It's fun but slightly overwhelming and samey. I like to see family though and don't want to let them down.

I do miss having Christmas at our house but it's not as convenient for everyone else.

I can understand your friend wanting to focus on her 3 children but leaving her terminally ill mother out etc does seem like a step too far.

I'd try to change the subject if she kept mentioning it. Prepare some left field questions!

She's selfish. Home alone with the children would be easier, but we don't do it.

I wonder if her husband has a choice? Women seem to make all the family decisions and he's expected to go along with it.

Not read the whole thread, but my general thoughts are that it’s complicated. You can never truly know what’s going on with someone else and the relationship difficulties they may have for whatever reasons. How would you feel if you cut this friend off and then discovered that she had some awful situations in her background that explains why she is protecting her Christmas in this way? Not that she needs an explanation.

However, speaking as someone who has very complex relationships with my family, and someone who has gone low contact, I also have found that my own ability to process my trauma and reach a place of acceptance and forgiveness has allowed me to step up and be there for some of the people who have historically been awful, and I’ve discovered that it’s given me a strange sense of peace - that I don’t need to respond ‘like for like’, that I can uphold my own ethics and values and respect myself more as a person for it. So, for your friend’s own personal development and sense of self, I would hope she can get to a place where she can detach but also hold space for others. But that’s her own journey, and not yours to judge.

She isn't selfish doing what works for her.

I like having everyone around but we are a fairly small family. We were forced to have Christmas just me and children when my daughter caught covid in 2020 and we were all bored without seeing everyone else. I haven't got a partner though so that might change things a little.

My adult children are starting to find boyfriends and they will be over at Xmas this year for either after dinner Xmas say or Boxing day. I want to make them welcome because if they do settle and then have children I'd want it to be normal for them to see me at some point over Xmas but I know at that point I'll be sharing them with their partners family.so Xmas will change again.

if she doesn’t invite her mum and sister why would she invite her in laws?

You seem to view hosting Christmas as a woman’s duty.

Not in any of your posts have you considered that perhaps she doesn’t want to cook a big Christmas meal. Have you asked her why her husband doesn’t host?

You’ve been asked why her sister didn’t host their parents in the past, what’s the answer?

Other people's expectations are not your obligations.

People can invite whoever they want. And people have different views on Christmas as well. My experience is that sometimes people expect too much from others, without seeing their background.

Well it's not the way I do things and I do sometimes wonder at how some people can seem to be so self centred. Some seem to the take the message that it's ok to say no, take time for yourself etc to a whole new level and never do anything that might make someone else happy. I'm slightly envious because I grew up with quite a log of obligation and am still too much of a people pleaser at times with my family.