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 !

For four days?? Without even consulting you to see if you wanted to come for 4 days? And that involves your kids being away from you from part of that? Even working means you still see your kids at the start and end of the day.

I’m not sure about this idea of it being a long, lonely christmas for the mil, she isn’t by herself as she has her husband there and the OP and family will see her on one of the xmas holiday days still. Also, she had no interest in experiencing the great joy of being around the grandkids when she was going away over Christmas. It’s only now that she has planned her year differently that she is expecting everyone else to fall in with her plans. I don’t think the one day that OP and husband have suggested spending with her over the break is unreasonable, especially as they may also have other family to see too along with maybe needing 5 minutes to have an actual break during their time off work.

For four days?? Without even consulting you to see if you wanted to come for 4 days? And that involves your kids being away from you from part of that? Even working means you still see your kids at the start and end of the day.

Absolutely this. Steam roller tactics.

Sorry I’m reading all the replies I had a long shift at work and didn’t get a chance to catch up on it last night!
we have had a chat and decided that dh will take the kids there on Xmas eve while I’m working (plus this means I get some of the afternoon to myself !!) and then on Boxing Day we will all go , he’s going to tell her today.
I do feel a little sorry for her as she clearly misses the Christmas organisation but it was just too much !

Retired headteachers I know have gone on to part time jobs in things like teacher training, tuition, school inspection etc. It sounds as if it might be a good idea to encourage your MIL towards something like that.

Can we see the schedule??

There doesn't have to be a backstory for people not to want to spend 5 whole days bro g bossed around at their in-laws house!
Maybe OP would line to see her own mum and dad over Christmas too?

I'm so pleased you and your husband are on the same page (as it should be).
My MIL expected the world to revolve around her. Before we even married I told H - we are spending Christmas at home.

My mil was in no way controlling but we decided right at the beginning that Christmas day would just be us. Christmas Eve was spent at Inlaws and Boxing Day with my parents. If anyone was upset they never said.

Are other family members included in this schedule or has she just decided that she is going to coordinate you and your family’s plans for 5 days over Christmas to do exactly what she wants to do?! It sounds like she is planning your directed time allocation to ensure she gets her moneys worth!

For someone who has been on holiday over the Christmas period, i presume she wouldn’t ever have wanted her Christmas to be planned by someone else?!

I am not sure why you quoted me?

hello to a member of the Be Kind Club

Us too. DH's job meant he was working over christmas most years on ships and I was with him. There was no Christmas as such. When we got our own home right from the start we said that we would see both sides of the family over the season. We defined this as the week before Christmas through to New Year because it meant travelling and staying over, but Christmas Day would be just us in our home.

Cannot stand all the bullshit ‘ooooh, it could be her last Christmas, you don’t want to regret not spending time with her’ narrative.

it could be anyone’s last Christmas!
I certainly wouldn’t want to spend my last Christmas with my children pandering to the demands of someone who was always happy to not spend Christmas Day with us on their terms (for example, being on holiday)

People need to stop being such martyrs at Christmas and do what they actually want to do.
if that means a big Christmas with in-laws, perfect, enjoy it.

if it means a Christmas with your own family unit, perfect, enjoy it, regardless of any strops that are thrown by people who want it their way.

pretty sure I spent my partners nan’s last Christmas with her 13 years ago. I’m going to her 100th birthday party next month.

in the mean time, we have actually unknowingly not spent much younger people’s last Christmas with them. I can honestly say that not spending December 25th with them has been the furthest thing from my mind at the time of losing them.

NRTFT but my nan retired this year as well and she's found it really hard to be retired.

Everything must be done, right now, as soon as she insists, and Christmas has been a huge focus for her. We've planned so many different christmas activities, food, music, and so on, and all stuff we don't usually do.

It's boredom OP, and a fear of losing health, fitness and mobility because retirement really does leave you with not much to do.

I can have a lot of empathy for my nan as I've been out of work for 5 years and I'll probably never return to work, and your days really start to all merge into one so what might seem controlling to others is giving me a sense of stability and giving life a bit of meaning.

That said you don't have to go along with the plans to reduce friction. You don't have to indulge someone else's ideal if it comes at a great cost to you, but if you want to compromise, make sure you know what it is you are and are not willing to do and communicate that.

What nonsense. Ops mil has been happy to holiday over Christmas for years and now all of a sudden her want to host should be pandered to. N way.

You said yes to a faamily Christmas and now you’re annoyed she’s organised one? Are you ok?

Are you OK? You don't seem to have read OP's posts. It's all sorted now. OP has said:

'we have had a chat and decided that dh will take the kids there on Xmas eve while I’m working (plus this means I get some of the afternoon to myself !!) and then on Boxing Day we will all go , he’s going to tell her today.'

She doesn’t NEED to explain it. Her question wasn’t “AIBU not to spend Christmas Day with MIL?”. It was what to do about being sent a schedule for a Christmas she never agreed to in the first place!

I don’t think that poster even read the OP’s first post, never mind the last one.

'we have had a chat and decided that dh will take the kids there on Xmas eve while I’m working (plus this means I get some of the afternoon to myself !!) and then on Boxing Day we will all go , he’s going to tell her today.'

I hope she takes it well, it’s a sensible solution

I think the answer is to make it clear from the start.
Just to be clear MIL was not alone for the rest of the day - two stepsons, their wives and three children would be with her until late. And we would have a meal with her every week, plus DH spent most of Saturday alone with her.

I always remember after fil died my mil spent christmas eve and day with one dd and then christmas night and boxing day with other dd and one year dh invited her to ours for whichever day she wanted and she said no because she always went to dsil and didn't want to change, fair enough but he was a bit hurt and after she died we chatted to one sil and she said it would have been nice to just once not have her there but she never knew how to broach it.
Just to add we visited both sets of parents most weeks both before and once we had kids. People don't seem to do that nowadays.

Ah, I see we have another kind and caring individual who seems to think she knows what the OP's mother was thinking when she went on all of those holidays. My next two paragrapghs are just a 'what if", it is not a suggestion that this is what actually happened, which of course none of us can actually know.

The OP said that they had rarely ever spent Christmas Day with her MiL. Well maybe the one or two days that they had spent together, before the OP's in-laws had decided to spend every Christmas on holiday, rather than with their DS and his family, were because the OP had made her MiL feel very unwanted.

There are quite a few ways that can ensure a guest feels unwanted, or even ostracised, with - in this case - one of them being by the attitude of her DiL, and maybe by her DS as well. He may well have been feeling stressed because he knew how much his DW disliked his DM. Perhaps he went on to spend the day snapping at his DM, because he felt that if he was too friendly with his mother, the OP would let him know how cross she was when his parents left, or maybe she wouldn't have even waited for that, maybe they would have exchanged heated cross words in the kitchen, in stage whispers that could be heard in the lounge?

I think that if I had ever had a 'welcome' like that, I wouldn't want to experience another one too soon either! But maybe the MiL's attitude towards this Christmas, is that now she has retired she wants, for once, to be able to spend a quality and enjoyable Christmas with her family, but perhaps she has had to gird her loins, to ask to do so. Therefore, in her clumsy and overly stressed way, she sent the message the same way that she would have felt safe doing so in her HT role before she retired.

Please remember that the above paragraph is nothing more than conjecture, as I just wanted to give you an alternative way to look at the MiL"s behaviour @lazyarse123

Seriously?! The MIL sounds so unbearingly controlling!