MIL wants to arrive 6AM Xmas day

[Countrybumpkin19]

My MIL lives on her own and close by.
The last couple of years she has arrived at our house at 6AM on Christmas day as she likes to see my DDs open their stockings. She has never asked me if that's ok (though presumably spoke to my husband about it). I find it far too much - I don't want to have to talk to any visitors at 6AM when I'm half asleep (least of all my MIL) and see it as an invasion of privacy. As far as I see it stocking opening is intimate family time and I feel she enroaches on this.
This year I sent her a really nice text message asking if it would be ok if she arrived at 9AM so that we have a little bit of time first thing to get ready and prepare for the day (I'm doing all the cooking/hosting). She is then welcome to spend the rest of the day with us. She is really upset by this message and my husband thinks I'm being unreasonable (it has opened up a big argument between us). AIBU?

Mixed feelings about this one. My mil doesn't live close so every Christmas she is with us she stays the night, so is always there for stocking opening. I've never had the option of not having to communicate with visitors when still half asleep. Even if not Christmas we are likely to both head for the kettle in our pjs half asleep at the same time! It's never occured to me to mind, it's just something you have to quickly get used to with in laws who don't live close.

However, we've never had a stockings in bed tradition as ours are left downstairs for ease of filling, so kids go down to them (and the dh or I would want to make a coffee anyway!). I can see your tradition is more intimate.

Also, my parents live close so only come for the day, and I would be very surprised if they wanted to get up that early! If anything I often wished they came earlier as with kids up early, if mil isn't there it feels like we are waiting around for Christmas day to start. I'd welcome the extra child entertainment around earlier!

Ultimately if she is a guest she is rude to be dictating her timings (and 6.00 is very early, what if they've managed to sleep later and her arriving wakes them?). But I am surprised by how many people on this thread wouldn't even include them if they were staying the night, and think of stockings as a private thing.

I’m a Mother and a MIL and I don’t want to be going anywhere until lunchtime. 😉

For an overnight visitor, I don’t quite understand not wanting them to see the children open their presents - it’s hardly a private thing. 🙄

I remember my grandmother and aunt arriving in the early hours and throwing stones at the upstairs windows to wake my mum up! They had packed the car ready to travel in the morning and just decided to set off since they were ready and it was quite a long drive.

The whole point of stockings is let your kids open presents whilst you stay in bed!

I would be losing my shit. Stockings in pjs is sacred and for parents and kids. GPs had their turn at that bit.

After that all good for visitors. Let me see if I gave my kids some joy with my choices and then let me get dressed. Then back to being oppressed by the patriarchy for the rest of the day.

"MIL will be dead soon" what do you mean? that's why some people are making themselves to be as painfully irritating and outrageous as they possibly can, making themselves such a nuisance ruining every day for everyone else, so they are not missed when they finally dead? Is that what you are trying to say?

Technically anyone of us could be ran over by a bus tomorrow, anyone of us could be dead soon, so I am not sure what point you are trying to make.

Spreading the Christmas love.

😆 our tortoiseshell cat. She's a bossy madam who thinks we run the house to suit her!

Exactly. They are a diversion before the main event.

Christmas love tends to be based around an oppressed female. Fact.

Well I didn’t say soon, but you read what you like 👍🏻

Even 9am would be too much for me! Yanbu thisis your family and your family time. She had her years of little children at Christmas it’s not right she’s intruding so early

Or people who get up at 6am on Xmas day.

@RedToothBrush that’s what we did when I was a child and when DC were little. If you woke up early you played with stocking toys in your own bed until parents were awake. Worked well apart from one year I was given a talking Basil Brush toy and woke up the whole house including GPs with his ‘Boom Boom’ 😂

Ha ha not at all. I’m pretty good at getting on with people though and believe in give and take. We are a large and happy family. Currently on a multigenerational trip with In laws. Perhaps large families are better at rubbing along.

sorry, you said "it won’t be long*

my bad, totally different 😂

Are you all waking each other up at 6am on your multi generational trip?

Are you related to me! My parents used to turn up at ridiculous o’clock as well. It used to stress me out but now I say you know where the kitchen is and carry on with my normal timetable. Get dressed. Now they are dependent on others and turn up at reasonable time.

If DH not supporting you. I would let her turn up and then let him do all the entertaining. After opening stockings at whatever time, I would say I am very tired having been up late last night preparing and up early now, and go back to bed.
Then I would boot adults out of kitchen whilst cooking.

edited to add: you could just leave her in living room with DH and still open stockings in your bedroom with children.

I expect so, we are hiking tomorrow and setting off early 😂

I'd just ring her and say 'look MIL we love you dearly but 6am is nuts, it's the middle of the bastard night, the only ones up are the birds. I'm still the ungrateful dead at 6am. Let's make it 9 so that I'm at least approaching human.'

Then next year suggest that she does DS a little stocking of her own that she brings with her to watch him open.

Stockings have always been opened the second you wake up in my house (as a child as well), giving the adults time to wake up and make tea and things so everyone is comfortable and ready to open presents under the tree instead of being forced to rush downstairs straight away. If someone was coming round at 6am and forcing me downstairs bleary eyed anyway, there would literally be no point to giving my child a stocking. It's to tide him over so I can wake up a bit and use the bathroom, put the heating on, make tea. So no I wouldn't have this no matter who it was.

Hope you have a merry Christmas op whatever happens.x

That only works if your also happy for people to see you in pjs bed hair and so on

Or the visitor can have enough respect to turn up at a decent time one the hosts are up and ready to host.

I had a similar situation with my mil, but not at 6am!!! By the way 6am is crazy and very rudenif her. Your husband needs to tell her thats not okay. She used to come with fil at 9am! One year she brought over their guest! We were still in pyjamas and I was annoyed by it all. Then one year my children were older (8/9) who knew santa wasn't real. Because they knew the pressies would still be there no matter what time they woke up. They started waking up later! Cue mil sat downstairs with my husband drinking tea, waiting for an hour. I'd stay in bed and relax! She stopped coming Christmas morning and switched to Christmas eve instead!

Yeah even my children are still in bed at 6am even 7am Christmas Day now they are mostly teens and a near teen.

It probably doesn't take away form the magic for the children (assuming they are close to their grandmother - which in this case, it sounds like they are) - but it takes away from a special moment for the mother - a little pocket of intimate time which she is entitled to.

In all families, there are levels of intimacy, and the OP clearly doesn't feel 100% comfortable with her mother in law at those most intimate moments like the 15 mins after you've woken up on Christmas day as the children open their stockings. She is allowed to have that special time with her kids without feeling the need to host / censor herself / perform in any way. Parents (and mothers in particular) pour a huge amount of time and energy into the run up to Christmas and making the day special for everyone - they are allowed a little quiet moment just with their kids in the moments after waking on Christmas morning if this is what they want.

It sounds like the grandma is fully involved in everything else.