MIL has sent us a Christmas schedule

[TheChristmasSchedule2026]

MIL has decided that ‘enough is enough’ and she wants a faaaamily Christmas.

We said yes we will try to visit on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day if she lets us know which she prefers. We have now been sent a schedule which stretches from the 23-27 December.
Im working on 23 the whole day and AM on 24th. She will apparently amend the schedule to reflect that and I won’t have any ‘duties’ on 24 (she had put me down as helping prep veg)

She thinks dh and the dc can just travel up and I can go straight from work on Christmas Eve.

We are seeing her this weekend so dh has said he will explain to her that we won’t be doing this as we have our own plans and reiterate that she can pick Christmas Eve or Boxing Day for a visit , if it’s Christmas Eve it will just be dh and the dc though (but I don’t think that will bother her it’s more dh and the dc she would want to see).

She is generally very controlling but this is more so than usual! I did say to dh just check first that she isn’t unwell or anything but otherwise AIBU to stick to just one day !

As a teacher, she's used to voluntelling kids what they're going to do.

That doesn't fly with adults with their own separate lives.

Why are you so against going there? Why can’t you go 24th PM to Boxing Day PM?

Maybe they don’t want to

If she's always spent Christmas away with your FiL it seems rather odd that she'd expect you to be available in this way just because she isn't doing it this year.

Anyway, like all "MiL" threads, I believe about half of what OP says.

I sympathise and can see what you mean but I suppose I just see it as 1 day. I've never planned any Xmas stuff until December and it's always been fine 🙂
I feel for people who get sucked into the whole rigmarole whether by choice or not because it must be rubbish.

You should do it! Maybe not this year but next year, you could suggest getting together a couple weeks before for a meal (good opportunity to do something different if the host would like to, I'd love to do an Italian Christmas dinner one day for example)?

I can if they're the type to schedule my entire Christmas without consulting me.

Poor woman. She's clearly lonely and your DH is just a bad apple..

I agree. I wonder how many people think the host wants this too. A lot do it out of obligation because they've "always done it." Dm always said that I loved cooking, and it drove me crazy. I would correct her, and she would conveniently forget and I'd get, "Ohh I thought you like it, but you're such a good cook." She would say this every year. I would have been delighted had somebody else cooked! For anybody wanting to go away, yes do it.

Christ people work really hard all year around. Maybe they just want to chill in their own homes for a couple of days, without having to gallivant around the country to spend time with needy relatives just because it is "Christmas"

Bit harsh! And she's got a husband and they usually go away for Christmas together, so she isn't that lonely.

That's not it at all. You're clearly too angry to read anyone's responses with an open mind

To my mind, this makes the MIL's plans completely unacceptable: "She thinks dh and the dc can just travel up and I can go straight from work on Christmas Eve."

There's no way that my husband and I would have been travelling separately.

She and her husband usually go away for Christmas. Not that lonely.

My guess is this is partly related to her retiring, she’s spent years as a HT, who would have been flat out in the lead up to Christmas. Those holidays she took, a way to get away, relax and reboot to go back to work.

Somewhere in there, she’s spent some time envisioning life after retirement, where you will all become some sort of Disney family movie Christmas, but she’s forgotten that plan was in her head, not something you all have to conform to.

can you pick one of her days, 23-27 and invite her to your place for a very relaxed catch up from 27-2nd?

I’d start as you planned, by asking about her health, hopefully a hint to her that she’s gone too far, followed up with asking her to remember what it was like when she worked and her own children were little. I’m getting she wasn’t off visiting anyone for 4 days.

What's with all this "if you only see her on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day it isn't a family Christmas"? Of course it is! Christmas is a season, not just the 25th December.

DH and both work, have two young children and have large families that are hundreds of miles apart. We have fallen into a pattern of travelling and seeing his parents the weekend before Christmas, then my family on Christmas Eve and we host an open house for everyone on Boxing Day. On Christmas Day it's a bit quieter because I want one day of sitting and drinking champagne in my pyjamas.

All of these events are family Christmases. If you have multiple sides of the family or family that live a long way apart that's a pretty standard way of dividing things up.

I LOVE the rigmarole, but I think what it highlights is that for working families of young children, a relaxed Christmas Day/week is the culmination of a month of fun, and wider family who are all only off on that week see it as the opportunity to do a lot.

I mean, my son has just turned three, and he had a great time having a party and lots of presents, but by the actual day he was DONE. Actually just eating left over cake and party snacks was his level, we refused to be drawn into doing something big to mark the day itself.

Ditto for Christmas.

So she is implying that "enough is enough" of you all not spending Xmas together when it is her that chose to go away all these years?!

For that alone I would be telling her where she can stick her schedule!

@TheChristmasSchedule2026 so MIL and FIL have usually gone away for Christmas. Now she's retired (no such need for a break from everything) and she wants to fill that time with something.

This not your problem. Visit on the 26th. Have a great time. Create some new traditions (if your dc are young enough) that Father Christmas flies back home via your IL's house and there special presents left there. Create your own adult boxing day traditions (that you always have fish pie, or always play Cluedo, or that everyone wears black.) Whatever.

Also, it is possible that in the working years MIL was frazzled by the end of term - hence the 'going away'. This might be her first year when she feels she has the capacity to organise and cook and host for Christmas. She may have friends who have been doing this sort of thing for years, in various formats, and MIL may have gotten overexcited... Maybe cut her some slack in understanding the things that are at play here (but do not give an inch).

That said: in my younger years, no way would I be capitulating to MIL's (or my parents, or any siblings) demands. And in my older years I would not dream of making an imposition.

Exactly, I hate when people say couples are spending the day alone, get the violins out. No they're not, they have each other! It is an insult to isolated people who are actually alone, and with no family.
Actually it is also an insult to couples who enjoy spending Christmas just the two of them, they're not alone!

I hope this year you get to do what you want?

There's lots of assumptions and traditions and it's hard to speak up. Often someone breaking tradition by going away or doing something different can shake up the whole routine for everyone.

Good point!

Gosh I can’t think why she’s not fussed about seeing you! And as for being controlling I think you maybe need to look in the mirror.
so as long as she sick and dying and your set to inherit then you’ll see her at Christmas but until then let me guess …you’ll be at your parents Christmas Day???!

For me it would be the fact that someone is dictating what and where I am on my leave from work. People have plans of their own as well there needs to be a balance of what everyone wants

What's wrong with wanting a family Christmas? Maybe she regrets going away previously and would like to make it up to you all. Maybe as she's getting older she's feeling her own mortality and would like to host a Christmas with all of you while she's still well and able. She has gone about it wrong in that she should have discussed it first but your reaction is a bit odd too. It sounds like she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't.