Mum says Christmas was too much for her and I forget she’s getting older

[MyQuirkyFinch]

We don’t have any family on my DH’s side so each year my mum stays with us. There’s me and DH plus 2DCs 7 and 3.
This year the couple next door came for lunch and stayed for the afternoon. They are some of our best friends and my mum knows them well and likes them.
We had a low key day by a lot of people’s standards. DH and I did all the cooking and got up early with the kids to open stockings etc. Our friends helped a lot with tidying up/entertaining the kids (as did my mum). Friends also brought puddings and cheese so we didn’t have to worry about that.
When we weren’t eating we played some games - dominoes, charades etc. Largely to entertain the kids we did a little talent show DC3 made us laugh with her elaborate dance to Frozen. Nobody had to join in anything they didn’t want to, I don’t believe in forced fun!

Everything passed without a hitch and everyone seemed to have fun. Kids were good and opened their presents in stages so didn’t get too hyper and sat nicely at the table to eat their lunch.

My mum went up to bed shortly after the kids so had an early night.

This morning she has blind sided me by saying it was all too much for her. She’s too old for a day like that and we need to be more understanding of her advancing years. She is 75 with no health conditions. I genuinely didn’t expect her to do anything other than sit on my house, eat and drink and play the odd card game with the kids.

Thinking about how I can scale it back next year but not sure how…. Any ideas?!

At risk of adding to the speculation, I wonder if the OP's mother is working up to getting OP's "permission" not to come at all in future.

After she was widowed, my brother and I took turns hosting my mother, which involved travel. After several years of this, she told us that she didn't want to hurt our feelings but that she preferred to stay at home for Christmas. But she did have many friends local to her, and she sometimes went to their homes or they went out to lunch. But sometimes, she just stayed home alone, reading and/or watching TV. It took a bit of adjustment for my bother and me, but once we let go of the notion that our aging widowed mother needed us in order to have a good Christmas, it worked for all of us.

But the older people on this thread don't seem to agree with you.

It doesn't really matter what other people enjoy and what other people her age are doing. If she says it's too much for her then it's too much for her.

It's absolutely fine for her to feel like a few hours with her family is too much for her. It's not ok for her to make that her DD's problem

I’m a similar age to your Mum. I have grandchildren just one year older than your children. It sounds like a relatively chilled and quiet Christmas to me. I wouldn’t change anything. I would just say that if she ever wants a rest she’s welcome to go to her room and read or watch TV for a bit. I enjoyed my grandchildren putting on a concert for me and played a board game with them while the parents were cooking. I do see a vast range in my friends in how they are ageing and how their health is. I wouldn’t change anything for the kids though, just make it clear that she’s welcome to chill out in her room at any time and you wouldn’t consider it rude.I did go to bed early on Christmas Day as Father Christmas had arrived at 6.30am.I hope no one was offended, I don’t think they were.

And that’s absolutely fine, if it’s too much for her then she can politely decline to attend.

I see two sides to this, maybe she was looking forward to a quiet family day and was disappointed by the presence of your friends and all the activity, however I think she is very lucky to be welcomed and surrounded by people on Christmas day. Sadly if I outlive dh then I am preparing to spend Christmases alone at that age, just like I did prior to meeting him.

But OP has clarified that this had nothing to do with the friends being there. The mum objected to having to spend time with her own grandchildren and wanted an “adult” Christmas.

Which again is absolutely fine but you can’t expect your daughter with small children to cater for this.

No health conditions but she’s 75?! Do you actually think a 75 has the same energy and strength as you?!?! I hate people saying this!!! You’re talking about a full day of having to be awake, engaged and put up an air of positivity- that sounds exhausting to me and I’m in my 40s! I have kids and fell asleep for an hour on Christmas Day as did dh!!

She got up mid morning, had all her meals cooked for her then went to bed at 8pm!

I'm the same age as you and if you think that the day OP has described is exhausting you need to get your iron levels checked.

If she is not prepared to explain in words what she means then I suggest you stop worrying about it

GalaxyJam

She had to sit enthusiastically all day long, chatting to people and appearing positive with young children in someone else’s house so absolutely no escape. Being entertained can be as exhausting- when we go to other people’s houses I breathe a sigh of relief when I’m back in the car driving home and I’m thirty years younger than her!!

🤣

TheRealMagic

This is about a 75 year old and as someone who worked 52 hours retail in the week before Christmas yes I’d find that an ok day but would still be a different type of tired and ready to go home by the evening. Iron is fine!!!

Oh come on… if someone is exhausted by ‘sitting enthusiastically’ after getting up in the middle of the morning, before going to bed at 8pm, then they must have an underlying health condition that needs to be checked out. Maybe she’s anaemic.

GalaxyJam

or she’s 75?!

OP has said that she loved the neighbours being there, it was her grandchildren that were the issue. If you can’t cope with children, who sound very well behaved, don’t go to a house with children at Christmas. It’s so unreasonable to expect the children to basically be seen and not heard like the old days.

I agree. Providing you don’t have a health condition you should, at any age, be able to manage a day sitting in front of the TV with meals cooked for you and minimal activity and a bedtime at 7pm. And there is no indication the mum has any health conditions.

I think doing nothing all day can actually make people listless and tired. People need to push themselves a bit out of their comfort zone to shake themselves out of this sort of torpor. Some people become almost addicted to inactivity. They are scared of trying and become depressed and withdrawn.

Honestly if you find a day in front of the TV with your feet up “too much” you are barely alive and you certainly have no right to force this zombie existence onto your family.

She didn’t have to do anything, was waited on, could have gone to her room at any time, seriously what else could OP have done? Her children exist!

Yeah. Sorry but a whole day of being awake and sitting around the house shouldn't exhaust someone in their 70s, let alone in their 40s.

Even at 75, I would suggest that if they were struggling to ‘sit enthusiastically’ for a few hours while having all their meals cooked for them, they might benefit from having some blood tests.

She is 75 years old i mean there is some posters trying to pretend 75 is middle aged because they know a 98 year old who is a party animal but 75 isn't the same as45 it is quite old and older people do tire and sometimes don't have the tolerance for socialising.

It sounds like typical Christmas chaos. She's an adult and needs to self regulate, rather than anyone else having to dial it back. I'm half her age but can relate to becoming overstimulated on occasions like this. However I would never make it anybody else's problem, I'd just take myself off to a quiet room for a bit. If there's nowhere to go I'd pop out for a walk. It's unfair for her to expect everybody else to change

No need to scale back - permission to nap or rest in room is the thing to talk about. My mum doesn’t ‘do’ naps but at 86 she falls alsleep in the afternoon- I talk to her about scheduling in a nap after lunch but she won’t have it.

personally at 51 if anyone at all offered me the opportunity to escape upstairs for an hour on Christmas Day I’d take it ;-)

perhaps you need to just all about not being ‘always on’ when staying with you - even not at Christmas this might need talking about. Just the conversation about not always being downstairs. Normalising the phrase ‘I’m off for a nap’ or ‘I’m having a half hour to read my book - see you in a bit’