It’s a Christmas one sorry! AIBU not inviting my in-laws to spend it with my family?

[OtterlyMad]

Apologies I know Christmas is still bloody ages away but our parents start asking for our Christmas plans as soon as we make it past Easter (!) so we’re under pressure to let them know. I’ll try to keep it brief.

DH has a very small family: his mum and sister (both single and live alone on the opposite side of the country to us) plus a handful of extended family they only see at weddings and funerals.

By comparison, my family is big. It’s normal to be 12+ people for Christmas dinner. My siblings and I have small houses so my mum hosts every year (she has a 4-bed semi so not a mansion by any means) and she never complains but I feel guilty and wish we could host to take the pressure off her. Sadly it’s just not feasible until we upsize which won’t happen for another couple of years yet.

For the first few years of our relationship, DH and I always celebrated Christmas apart, with our respective families. Since we got married we’ve alternated which side we spend it with. This year it’s my family’s turn. But DH always feels bad whenever we don’t see his mum and sister since it’s just the two of them. This year, he suggested that we invite them to spend Christmas with my lot (obviously we would have to ask my mum first but I know she would agree because that’s the sort of person she is). However, I think it’s unfair to place any extra burden on my mum. DH says “it’s only two more people” but that’s on top of a dozen already. Plus my family are used to it being a tight squeeze - some of us end up sitting on the floor, and it’s all elbows at the dinner table - but we muddle through and have a laugh. Frankly I can’t imagine my quiet, reserved in-laws enjoying the ruckus and I wouldn’t be able to relax because I’d be worried the whole time that they were judging my very forward, loud and (probably) drunk family members!

I told DH no and we argued about it. He has accused me of disliking his family (not true), of being selfish (because his mum and sister have to spend the day “on their own” though I’ve pointed out they’re not on their own if they’re together!!) and “gatekeeping my family” (whatever that means). Am I being unreasonable by refusing to invite them?? I just want to continue with the current arrangement where we alternate each year.

P.S. In case anyone is wondering why we can’t split it (e.g. Christmas Day with one side and Boxing Day with the other) DH’s mum and sister live a 6hr+ drive away so it has to be all or nothing really.

That's guilt tripping nonsense. They agreed to spend alternate Christmases with each other's family which seems fair. Her DH is now expecting OP's mum to host two extra people that she doesn't know well. He is being unfair.

What's the point of asking a lot of unknown people on the internet if you are being unreasonable when you clearly have already decided that you are not?

Of course you should invite them. 2 more people is nothing especially if you actually help your mum.

I think you are making excuses and I agree with your DH.

The majority of people who have voted also think that OP is not being unreasonable. I think very few people change their minds/position, even if most posters disagree with them.

So you agree with her DH that he should get to see his family every year, and OP only every other year, and to enable this, OPs mum should facilitate it without even being asked?

This

Your husband needs to grow up. Taking in turns at Christmas is very common and an attempt to be fair. Why does your mum have to host another 2 people?

Oddly, though I have suggested if your DM is happy then invite MiL, it is perfectly possible to have a lovely Christmas with just 2 of you. My late DH preferred this though we almost always went to the big family get-together. And MiL and SiL could book a hotel for Christmas if they wished, too.

OP has made it very clear that her mum doesn't accept any help offered when cooking the Christmas dinner. Sometimes other people helping are more of a hindrance than a help, particularly if they don't know where things are kept and need to keep asking questions.

OP doesn't want to put her mum in the position of feeling that she needs to say yes to OP's MIL and SIL being invited out of a sense of duty/obligation and so as not to upset her son-in-law.

YANBU

Your DH is being ridiculously rude and doesn’t sound like anyone who has hosted anything in his life.

The audacity to think it is perfectly ok to push your spouse to ask their mum to invite his mother and sister when she already has a lot of people to host is silly. Nowhere does it say that his mum and sister want to come all that way in the first place especially if they live six hours away for Christmas.

It seems he feels guilty for whatever reason and that is his problem to solve, not yours and definitely not your mum. My guess is he wants to see his mum and sister but doesn’t want to travel to them so wants to have them travel to you all instead. He sounds like the selfish one.

I will never understand how people can be so dramatic over Christmas and the emotional manipulation on this thread is unfortunately unsurprising when it comes to one bloody holiday.

Also didn’t get the memo that the definition of alone changed from one person to two people, but I guess it is only when it concerns Christmas. 🙄

Ah fab, you have saved me typing out a long post. I agree with this entirely!!!

DH's mum and sister are not the last standing. And for the hundredth time on this thread, the invitation is not OP's to make. Her mum is hosting Christmas and any extras don't just affect her, they affect all the other guests too. If her mum wanted extras, she'd invite them. And of course she'd then have to invite her other childrens' in laws too. And it would all become ridiculous.

It is not OP's place to invite people to an event where she is not the host. That's a very simple social rule. Why do so few people on this thread understand it?

😂Somehow who replies this way is the LAST person I’d be looking to for how to have a loving and magical Christmas!! Gosh please, even if you retort with another insult, have a private think about how kindness and coming together is at the heart of this. Being kind to one another genuinely makes you happier.

"It's extremely difficult for people on their own"

Whilst it is sad that you feel so isolated @YourBrickTiger for me, personally, I would amend your statement to read it's difficult for SOME people who are on their own.

Please stop being so patronising. OP's DH isn't being kind to OP's mum by expecting her to invite two people she hardly knows to an already pretty crowded Christmas dinner. And he isn't being kind to OP by expecting her to ask her mum to do this, when OP knows that she won't want to but will feel obliged to say yes.

If your in laws are up for it and your mum doesn’t mind then let the in laws come. Don’t upset your husband, good for everyone to get together and not your place to be vetoing. You and DH bring puddings/ cheeseboard/fizz whatever to help your mum out and carry on doing it going forward.

No amount of insults or name calling me will change encouraging kindness = encouraging kindness. Saying it’s patronising says more about how you perceive kind acts than the act itself. I gave my opinion because family (not sure why you’re calling them strangers?!) coming together is what Christmas (and life really) should be about.

Understand, sorry.

You are being a bit precious. I think you should invite them. And whether or not they come, stop moaning about your mum being run ragged and help her. Offer to make the roasties, a pudding or the turkey. Everyone can and should be pulling their weight. Your MiL can bring something too.

(not sure why you’re calling them strangers?!)

Because, @WorcsEdu , my brother's sister in law is a stranger to me. As is my brother in-law's mother in law. They are not my family by any stretch.

These two women are her DH's family. They are the OP's in-laws. They aren't family to her mum and dad, her siblings and their spouses, nor their nephews or nieces. They are strangers to almost all of the 12 people at her mum's Christmas Day meal.

"The more the merrier" very much depends on who's attending. My autistic niece, for instance, would absolutely hate having a stranger there over a meal. Too many people, too much sensory stimulation, far too draining on her social battery. My adult son would mask at the time but then need to decompress for 36 hours.

My Mum could feed an extra two or three without blinking an eye. I've had to accommodate an extra 5 on the fly and managed it with only a little bit of cussing.

My in-laws, on the other her hand, need advance notice in triplicate for every minor alteration and someone unfamiliar coming to dinner sends them into a spin.

If the DH really can't manage to respect the alternate year agreement, he can go see his mum and sister on his own.

Ah that classic AIBU

Majority of Mumsnetters: yes, yes you are, wind your neck in
OP: No I'm not, stop being mean to me, wahhh

Love all the posters merrily ignoring all logics of physics and economics to insist that unless you invite everyone youve ever met to spend every christmas with you you're worse than scrooge.

I can't decide whether it's deliberate arseyness or just your standard middle class mumsnetter completely oblivious to concepts like millions of people not even having a dining room and saving up all year in their asda cashpot to be able to afford to cater for 5, let alone 30 plus.

Who needs a seat of their own? Nothing says merry Christmas like balancing the Brussels sprouts as you squat on the living room floor or balance half a bum cheek on the rim of the bath. Or indeed a plate? sharing is caring. They can sleep 4 to a bed like Charlie bucket grandparents. Forget a turkey so big it won't fit in the oven, just buy a mythical chicken, that will feed the extended relations and friends of two whole families.

Meanwhile in actuality you know most of the people castigating OP spend Christmas with "their own little family" and only begrudgingly pop round to visit their ILs at some point in the new year.

You are being obtuse. The acts of kindness that you are encouraging OP to perform by inviting her in-laws to Christmas dinner at her mum's require OP to be unkind to her own mother as she knows that her mum won't want to do this but wouldn't feel able to say no.

Your care and concern are only directed at OP's in-laws. They are not directed at OP and her mum. You are being hypocritical.

What are you on about?
The majority of both the comments and the voting are saying OP ISNT being U.

What you, an individual thinks isnt magically extrapolated to become the "majority of mumsnetters."

It's not kind to invite people to someone else's house for Christmas - at best it's socially inept, at worst it's bloody rude!

It's very easy to 'be kind' when you are not doing any of the work or being inconvenienced in any way. I don't know how many times the socially inept/rude posters need this to be repeated, but it's not the OP's invitation to issue!

All that aside, it's also okay to just not want to invite them - it isn't mean or unkind to prefer Christmas with one's own family. It really isn't a universal belief that your children's/siblings in-laws become your own family.

What happens if OP's siblings have in-laws who are spending Christmas just with one other person - do they all get an invitation to OP's poor mum?