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?!

My mum can be similar, and it’s really hurtful. I feel like I flog myself half to death to make. Christmas nice for everyone, and then complains it is too much for her, too loud, too much food etc etc. She is on her own, and I am an only, so I don’t really have any other options. My saving grace is that she is local enough to come over for a few hours, and doesn’t need to stay.

OP, your day sounds lovely. Food, a few games, conversation. Perfect. I think you can just be clear with her that she can head upstairs as it suits her, but if you are able to, tell her that she has upset you. Ungrateful so and so.

I think some people just find being around children too much? My dc are now grown up and we quite enjoy an adult only Christmas, I struggle with the noise and excitement of small children but I think if they were my grandchildren I would feel differently, Christmas is magical for children and they are not children for long. Yes she’s 75 but that’s not really old?

If she doesn’t like it then next year she should make other arrangements because you have young dc and your Christmas is centred around them (which it should be).

Your Christmas Day sounds fab, not too much and it’s not as though she had to do much, she wasn’t forced to play with the children, she was fed and entertained and could have gone for a break at any time?

So you're going to chose to make your kids Christmas worse and less fun for them to suit your mum? Why? Your responsibility is to your kids. If it's too much for your mum she can go for a nap/watch tv. We had miserable Christmases as kids for the same reason, all to pander to Grandparents and extended family at the expense of the kids. I've never forgotten and neither will your kids.

I think she’s being really ungrateful to be honest. It’s yours and the kids Christmas too. Not just hers. It sounds like you had the perfect day. If she’s not up to being around the kids at Christmas then maybe she should just stay home? I know that sounds awful but what can you do? It’s not up to you to fix anything. If she wants to spend Christmas at yours it comes with the kids noise fun and games. Don’t tone anything down just for her!

I hosted my parents despite them living ten minutes away on Xmas Eve and day and have been receiving the silent treatment so I suppose it’s better she spoke up. Apparently the day was too full on for her and noisy and that’s my fault? Despite them doing zero to help and being waited on. Next year I’m not hosting anyone. Enjoy the Christmas YOU want for you and the kids.

I'd put money on it, it's the neighbours that bothered her.

Perhaps she just wanted a day with your family minus the friends? I know you said she liked the friends but at the end of the day, they’re not family and maybe she just wanted quality time with you and the children..

Mum went through a stage, at around that age, that she found it very hard going if an occasion wasn't 'Mum centred' (it made family weddings bloody delightful). Also, she got increasingly self centred, and rigid in her wants - and her needs.

To some extent, yes, things did need to be adapted for her - making sure she eats, and early, not late.

She did, however, eventually mellow out, and is now a lot happier to go with the flow, accept that not everything is going to be as she wants it, or thinks it 'ought to be' (bloody major when it comes to Christmas!!), and that she does need to take a bit of personal responsibility for taking herself off if she's finding it all a bit overwhelming.

I wonder if your Mum, OP, is in the middle of a similar somewhat painful metamorphosis. . .

Read the OPs follow up replies. It’s the kids that were the issue

God please dont put your mum above your child on Christmas day. Your mum is being welcomed but on the totally normal terms of a family day. Christmas is special in childhood!

Your mum has many options including resting in her room.and it sounds like she juat finds children hard work

Your child should get to enjoy Christmas as its only a few years they really love the magic of it

I wouldn’t scale back, sorry but no, if you don’t like it, don’t come! Christmas is about the kids, no way to sending them upstairs in Christmas Day to play quietly ffs. Christmas is about chaos and noise and food and games and kids being able to show their grandma their ‘talents’. My 87 year old great grandmother came to us when the kids were little (she’s dead now), and 100% got involved in the morning, had lunch, went upstairs for a snooze then came back down and started in the gin and played charades and other games with everyone!

With young children? She has a tv in her room so she could have gone and snoozed in front of the TV up there if she fancied but surely no one expects kids to be quite enough for adults to nap in the living room on Christmas Day?

Seems to me that she needs to make better use of her personal space if it’s ’too much’ for her. You have small kids, it’s obviously not going to be relaxing for her. She can spend more time in her room and join in as and when she feels up to it. There’s not really another solution is there? Unless she thinks your children can be packed off somewhere else?

Sounds like the neighbours did the heavy lifting on entertaining the kids whilst OP and her DH were cooking so it would have been much more work for the OP’s mum if they hadn’t been there.

I think your Christmas sounds really nice OP. I have an 8 and 3 year old and my mum is 71 and my mother in law 76 and they were fine (and we had no friends to spread the load with just my brother). I think making Christmas more low key to suit your mum sounds miserable to be honest. It sounds like she had plenty of opportunity to get away from the kids and making them go up to their rooms to play etc on Christmas Day sounds really miserable for them.

I am of the view, with many others, that your day sounds chilled, especially or a guest. If your mum wants to sit in. Quiet peaceful environment,,then I assume her home is that.

Again, I agree with others that if she had the opportunity to take a break somewhere quiet, then that is enough. She needs to also accept that you have young children who need entertainment, not quiet and mellow!

Seriously, Christmas is mainly for children, if you’re putting your grumpy mother before your VERY young children and willing to tell them to not enjoy themselves over their grumpy granny not wanting to deal with their happiness then there last something seriously wrong with you, she’s not very elderly and she’s in good health but seems to be using her age as a way to control what happens in other peoples houses, the fat OP is suggesting she basically turns her whole top floor into a live in flat for her mother shows the control she has over her! Replace the tv with a smart one, throw a kettle and mini fridge in the room and that’s all she needs, leave your study for yourself, it’s not like she lives there fgs and I wouldn’t even offer to let her move in for at least 10 years so the kids are past their child like stages because she can’t even stand one day with them never mind permanently so leave her where she is. Although the part that confuses me is when op said she has no siblings yet also said her childhood Christmas’s consisted of her mum doing the cooking, stressing out, the adults all getting drunk and arguing and all the kids left to their own with their new toys, who were these kids if she’s no siblings? Anyway, she sounds a bit much, tell her next year to go up to her room for a break when she’s feeling overwhelmed by her ONLY 2 grandkids!!!

Sorry I think it's really shitty to send your kids to their rooms on Christmas day and refuse to play with them just because their grandma finds them annoying. And recarpeting and buying a new TV? She's your mum, not the Queen.

That was my first thought as well.
I'm sure she does like your friends, but it creates a different vibe when you include non-family. She probably saw a difference in your behaviour as well, because lets face it, we DO behave differently with friends than our mums.

Also, despite the kids being well-behaved, they are still both pretty little, and kids (rightly at that age) tend to dominate the day, albeit unintentionally.

I suspect the combination of external people, and over-excited small children, was a bit much for your mum. She's have probably been fine with either friend, OR kids, but not both.

My mum is 70, and I suspect she'd think the same in this situation, but I suspect she'd be too polite to say anything.

Honestly - I think the idea of making her an upstairs retreat with a smart tv and her own other area is enough.

Your kids are only small for SUCH a short time. And you only have the magic of little kids at Christmas for such a short time. Give your mum a nice retreat upstairs and spend time with her on Christmas Eve / Boxing Day but she isn’t the Christmas priority. Yours and your children’s Christmas memories are. Your mother had her turn at a child at Christmas when you were small, and didn’t like it; this is your time and you seem to like it.

Your Christmas was fine as it was from the sounds of it anyway.

This is so sad for your kids.

If she was 20 years younger do you think she would have enjoyed the day? Or do you think she would still have felt too much time and attention was given to the children and it wasn't 'adult' enough.
The answer to this might help you decide how much you want to bend to her requests.

It sounds like you gave your children a wonderful Xmas.
your mum could have gone for a nap if it was too much for her or a walk to clear her head.
I can sense your disappointment in what your mum said but I think your loyalties now lie with your children and your mum needs to learn the days of drunken xmases are gone. X

It sounds really tiring to me, too. I love a quiet family Christmas, though. Friends come and go, and ultimately the children value memories of grandparents, not neighbours or transient connections.

It sounds like you and your DH put a lot of effort in to the day and it sounds lovely. Your mum could have gone upstairs by herself for a while if she wanted to by the sounds of it. I'm sorry but it is your house and you have a young family and the day should be about them. I would ask her in a few days what a nice day would have looked like for her, if you would like her to come next year is it something you can accommodate? But ultimately I think you should put your children first.

the fact OP is suggesting she basically turns her whole top floor into a live in flat for her mother shows the control she has over her!

Agree. I don’t know why everyone keeps saying that this suggestion is “reasonable”.It is not reasonable in the slightest to dedicate an entire floor of your home to someone who only stays over once a year, in an attempt to appease them.