to not invite my sister for Christmas?

[NameChangedforThis3036]

Our mother died in late August of dementia. Our dad died about a decade ago. I have three kids of university age. My sister has no kids as she never really wanted them, and she married a horrible man who had an affair and then left her.

I feel completely and utterly shattered after my mum's illness and death. I long, long, long to have Christmas with just my husband and kids, and no one else. I am dead with exhaustion after this year. Sis did more care, as she had more time, but obvs the whole thing is/was awful for us both.

Would I be unreasonable not to invite my sister for Christmas? She'll be on her own otherwise or have to go to friends, as our parents are gone and she's getting divorced. I know it sounds awful but I'm just so strung out. And I love Christmas just us.

Help!

Goodness - the spirit of christmas is alive in you, eh?

Invite her, don't invite her - but know that the relationship likely will be injured beyond repair if you don't ... but seems like you won't care about that.

I feel so sorry for your sister. I wonder if she realizes what type of person you are.

So you have actually had quite a few years of Christmas being just your family? Which is it? You’re not making sense.

Since she works from home and has no husband or kids, she moved in with our mum for a few months at a time, going back to her place for a few weeks at a time for respite. Mum had a partner who helped her too, but he's 87 and not in the best of health himself. I live 100 miles away in the opposite direction.

Sounds like the last five years of just OPs dh and kids. Presumably OPs sister spent Christmas with OPs mum.

I don’t think anything anyone says here will make a blind bit of difference.
Its very sad

Does she also not have a job, or friends, or a community? You have zero respect for the way that your sister lives her life, and I hope she goes somewhere warm, with a beach, for christmas instead of in a hotel up the road from your cold, sad, inhospitable home.

I hosted parents or PILs for most Xmases until 2019. Then it was the pandemic in 2020, and after that Mum couldn't travel, and with all the kids I insist on being in my own home. And there's not room for us all at hers. We always had family from the Nineties when we got married. I think we might have managed one or two alone, but mostly Xmas has been family-dominated until the pandemic.

Yeah but the sister had “time.” I’m sure she’s happy to take half the inheritance though.

I’m the sister who did ‘most of the caring’ until my parent died from Alzheimer’s at home after eleven years.

I would have found it very hard indeed to hear that my siblings felt THEY were beyond exhausted.

So what if your eldest decides they want to spend Christmas with their partner? And your Mother died in late August? Of this year? Less than a month ago and you are already planning Christmas

She works full-time from home as a daily newspaper reporter on a foreign desk, so her hours are late. But it's remote. It made sense for her to care for our mum since she is flexible and has no ties.

I'm fine with her life, I just feel that we are all responsible for our own choices and hers was not to have a family of her own. Yes, she has friends and a community, but she left them for months at a time to help Mum.

"Yes, she has friends and a community, but she left them for months at a time to help Mum."

Wasn't that lucky for you.

I think this is actually pretty awful.

Here is a woman in her 50s who’s nursed her mother through dementia, buried her, has no dad, is going through a divorce, has no kids….and her one and only living relative wants her to be alone at Christmas (you do want it, because you know that’s what will happen and you are actively trying to bring it about). Why? Because you prefer your husband and kids even though she’s perfectly decent and your own kids love her, and because if she wanted to be around family at Christmas she should have had kids of her own.

This is so awful I’m wondering if it’s actually true.

It is only the middle of September, come December you might well be feeling less tired etc etc. Do I think you should invite your Sister - yes I,do. Not only in recognition of her increased care of your late Mother, but also she is your last surviving sibling, your children enjoy her, and going by what you say she is not at all difficult.

Christmas can be a lonely time for someone on their own, cop onto yourself.

Hang on - is this a bloody reverse?? 😡

I have to agree.

This level of sheer heartlessness has to be a wind up

I think this divorced aunt should just be grateful that you’re still talking to her, given her childless existence.

I’m beginning to think the same, nobody could be this tone deaf, in reality

She does have a family. You are her family. Your children, who adore her as their aunty, are her family. Please invite her. Family is so important. The day might come when you might need her and appreciate that but by then it could be too late.

I think YABU and unkind. You acknowledge that your sister did most of the care, you are both grieving and yet you want to leave her on her own for Christmas? I’m sorry but it sounds selfish and harsh. Your children are grown up, does it really matter if you have one more adult around the table? I could understand it slightly more if your children were really young and you wanted to do the whole exciting Santa/presents thing together.

Christmas is not the time to exclude anyone.

I often say on these kinds of threads that you shouldn’t feel beholden and the handwringing every year is unnecessary. However, in this circumstance I’d invite her, I spent the first Christmas without my mum with my brother we were both grieving, I don’t view him as a ‘guest’ he’s my brother and can make himself as at home as he likes. It was quiet and different but I’m really glad he wasn’t on his own and that we had each other.

She may not want to come to you but also whilst you’re doing your thing your sister may feel incredibly lonely and the sense of loss may be compounded. She might be fine. Speak to her but don’t leave her out, not this year.

I'm worrying about it rather than planning it.

I wouldn't let my eldest spend Christmas with her partner. She lives at home as she's only just finished uni. She knows she's expected to be home with us for Christmas and his parents have similar expectations for him. They're long distance as they met at uni so can't just pop round. This is what I mean - some year soon, they are going to insist on Xmas together, and nuclear family Xmases will be no more. They are all on the cusp of adulthood. I missed out on having Christmas as just us all the years they were children, and I just want these few before they all get partners.

Not “on the cusp of adulthood” … but adults already.
Just finishing Uni, puts them at 21/22, and you “won’t let” them spend Christmas with their partner. You can’t stop them.

Not a reverse, and I am trying to practice self-care and not be beholden to what others want, as I did that for so many years. I lost all their childhood Christmases since we always took turns - my folks one year, his the next, etc. With my sister and me switching off. So she always had every other Christmas with just her husband. Except one, when Dad had died and her husband had left her, so they both came to me, and I really hated and resented it. All the Xmas pressure over the years has really made me hate Christmas.

Well, they haven't asked, so we're safe from that this year. It might be our last-ever family Christmas just the five of us, another reason why I don't want sis there.

I was just pushed around for so, so many years about Christmas, and I so cherish it being just the five of us. If I cave in to having her too, I feel like the Christmas pressure is never going to end.