To feel sad about this?

[justalittlesad]

I’m in my 20s and live at home. I don’t earn a ton, but what I do earn goes into savings for a house.

My brother has just announced he’s leaving to Australia in September. My parents have gleefully announced that they will be travelling down to see him at Christmas.

We have no other family - it’s the four of us, my grandparents are dead and I am not particularly close with my aunts and uncles.

I can’t afford the airfare down to Australia. They’re talking about taking most of December and January down there. I can’t afford a hotel for that long, nor do I have the annual leave for it. When I asked what about me at Christmas, they shrugged their shoulders.

They’re looking at business or first class flights, but even the cheapest flights with 2 layovers are £1,400, which is basically my entire monthly salary.

I do understand it’s their choice, they’re adults and he’s an adult and it’s his decision to move. But AIBU to feel very sad at the thought of Christmas alone? I work up to December 24th and go back in between Christmas and new year, so it really will just be me. I’m really upset by it, because Christmas has always been my favourite time of year because of the family aspect.

AIBU? I feel like if I say anything I’ll be called selfish.

I think it’s really sad they didn’t at least offer to pay for you to go over too or maybe half towards. I can understand them wanting the trip over there but leaving one child completely alone for Xmas seems unreasonable. It would be different if you had a partner and/or children to spend it with.

Without a tree.

I've heard it all now. A woman who has been to university and who is in her mid twenties he's more than capable of being able to put on the heating.

She's also got 6 months to figure it out...

OP I feel that no matter what anyone suggests you are knocking it back. I know you are disappointed but you are an adult. 1 christmas alone out of the many you have had so far won't kill you.

Don't spoil your parents trip away. Smile and tell them to have a wonderful time.

Can you do a fake Christmas in late January with family? All the same food, presents etc?

It’s just one Christmas. If we’re lucky, we get to have dozens of them in life and they change over the years; you won’t always be able to have the same cosy family Christmas that you had when you were a child. I haven’t spent one with my parents since I was 35 because that’s when they died. Of course it makes me sad, I’d like to have a repeat of the sort of Christmases I had as a child/teen, with my mum and dad and all the fun games we used to play, but I’ll never be able to have that again. Sometimes I spend Christmas at my ILs. It’s nice but it’s not as good as the ones I had at home. Sometimes we host at our house, then I can repeat some of the traditions I had with my own family. It’s just a few days; a midwinter festival. Make what you want of it.

I know it's hard but it's best to send them on their way with joy. You can bet they'll be missing you too when they get there.
However this is your chance to do something totally different: book a break away or host an event, find a place that needs volunteers. Invite all your elderly neighbours, cook up a feast, do something you might never do again. You are definitely not alone in being alone at Christmas.

Re the tree, OP… you’re young! I bet when Christmas rolls round you’ll be too busy out and about gallivanting - work dos, night outs with pals, etc that you won’t give a shit about a tree! Enjoy 🥂

Come on, OP, you're wallowing here. Ok, you feel a bit down and a brief amount of 'isn't everything shit' wallowing is ok, but really, this isn't a dreadful thing that will ruin Christmas. If you were my child, I would offer to pay for your flight so we could all be together at Christmas. It sucks your parents haven't offered, but that doesn't mean you have to be stuck at home alone. You could go to a friend's house (if they invite you, you won't be gate crashing); you could book a solo holiday; you could book a couple of nights in a lovely hotel, which includes Christmas dinner; you could splash out on delicious food that you cook yourself at home. As for the tree, it's total nonsense that you can't have one just because you're on your own. What do you think single people do? I've never known how to drive, so whenever I have big products or awkward items, I pay for it to be delivered or get a taxi. With Christmas trees, I buy one locally and they deliver for free. There are also plenty of companies that sell real trees online and deliver. Whining about what you can't do (when it's perfectly feasible to do it) is making you sound a bit bratty. If you're determined to wallow, it will be you that spoils your own Christmas. You're responsible for your own actions and how you react to the actions of others.

Good plan. Book a few days away by yourself. A single colleague used to go on retreats over Christmas. In this country - not hugely expensive. It might be good for you.

Wallowing would only be the correct word if she’d been feeling like this for a while and not tried to process and move forward. It’s a pretty judgemental term.

Her feelings are valid. She needs empathy. She needs to process this before she can problem solve and move on to solutions. Give her a minute to just feel the very valid feelings she is having.

I don't know why people are giving you a hard time, you're already feeling bad about this situation. I really feel for you 💕 If you were my child, I'd have offered to pay for at least some of the holiday and even if you couldn't come due to leave, I'd have felt terrible that you'd be left behind and offer you money towards your Christmas to go somewhere you like for a meal and a night or two somewhere you fancy. You're still very young and finding your independence. I hope you can find something you'd like to do after you get over the hurt x

I know people say your parents are entitled to do what they like, that's all fine however the fact is they have not been considerate. I feel like you are more invested in your parents then they are in you. I personally would never do that to my daughter and if i was to go i would want her to come with us and i would offer to pay for her as it seems like they can afford it. It is sad, i feel like you need to stop relying on them emotionally as they haven't thought of you. If you had a boyfriend you could have spent it with him or gone to his family's for Christmas, i think you need to focus on finding a life partner who will be there for you and hopefully creating your own family in the future xx

Why are people being such cunts?
Laughing and bitching about made-up ideas about how the OP can't work the central heating or the lights

They’re going on holiday, for heaven’s sake! To somewhere your brother happens to be going to live. Do you normally expect to go on holidays every time with your parents? Or do you think that because this extended holiday includes Christmas it’s different?
Do you have issues with reading comprehension? It's obviously not just any old holiday; the parents are expressly talking about how 'It’ll be a family Christmas' while one of their two children sits there knowing she's not going.

I can’t believe people have this attitude 😂 I would never want my parents to miss out on a holiday of a lifetime just because aise they couldn’t afford to take me, a 34 year old woman with them. Where does it stop? Should they be paying for their kids and kids-in-law? And grandkids? And great grandkids? Ridiculous.
anyway, OP has said she doesn’t have enough annual leave from work, so whether her parents pay for her to go is irrelevant.

I'm torn about the holiday aspect. I get that parents, once their kids are adults, may well have long hoped for plans to do things like travel somewhere far flung. Some adults are still living with their parents in their 40s and that's a long time to wait. No parenting doesn't end bang on 18 but neither should it be prison sentence of several decades.

They could have handled it with more tact and not talked about it being a "family holiday" though.

Sounds like they have a lot of money. Wonder why they wouldn’t offer the airfare for you.

No, Christmas won't always be the same but I also wouldn't in good conscience leave someone alone to spend a family day by themselves. If they want to go and join your brother over Christmas then yes, that is their right, but as you say they don't need to keep going on about it right in front of you and making such a big thing of it.

One year I didn't know what to do for Christmas and I remember my sister saying she was going to our sisters house and when I asked if I could come too was told 'there wouldn't be enough room'. I will never forget that.

I spend Christmas alone now by choice and tbh quite like it but it is daunting the first time, especially when that's not the Christmas you had in mind for yourself. On the bright side you have six months to wrap your head around it and plan a nice day for yourself. Try to look at it as an opportunity rather than them 'abandoning you'.

Your feelings are totally valid OP. Cannot understand why so many people here are being so heartless, this page clearly has even more of a "cold showers at boarding school" mentality than I'd thought.

Of course your parents are entitled to a holiday. They could just as easily go two days after Christmas. That wouldn't be prioritising you over your brother, seeing as your brother chose to go away. Also cannot fathom the idea here that because someone is an adult they are not worthy of being treated with the slightest grain of respect. Actually no, this is MN where I've seen "birthdays are for children" trotted out without the faintest trace of irony so perhaps I should be less surprised. Anyway. They're wrong and cold (as your parents sound like) and you have every right to struggle to process your feelings about this.

I understand your upset...

But.. Let's re frame it... It's not that it doesn't include you - you've made the (right) choice of not travelling for such a short time and expense.....

Nothing stopping you getting a 5 foot artificial tree and putting it on a table or sideboard. It'll come in handy once you move out into your own place - and no pine needles to vacuum up every day from 17th December to sometime in mid February.

Yeah, they're being a bit blasé about your feelings, but you don't have to make it worse for yourself by deliberately making it as miserable as possible for you.

I’m sorry if you felt I was being a ‘cunt’. Just to clarify- my comment about using the lights and heating was aimed, not at the OP, but at another poster who was concerned that the OP would have to spend Christmas all alone stuck in a room in the dark and cold. I thought that was a ludicrous thing to say because the OP is in her 20s and will most likely be able to use the lights and heating without another adult to help.

Honestly flabbergasted at how mean people are being OP. Of course you’re devastated, who wouldn’t be? If you’re in the south west you can come to mine for Christmas. I think your parents are being at best thoughtless

It might not be about affordability either. They might just fancy a holiday by themselves and seeing their son without having to take into account the needs of another person. If the OP is in her 20s and hasn’t moved out then it means her parents don’t get a lot of time on their own and to enjoy being in their own home as a couple as there’s always someone else there. Perhaps they see this as a way to have time away together but also to see their son without their daughter being there too.