Should partner spend 1st Xmas with widowed father?

[FreeRider]

My partner of 14 years lost his mother 2 months ago unexpectedly. He's an only child, early 50s, his mother was in her early 70s, same age as his father.

We don't live together for various reasons, mainly connected with his work....my partner lives in the same city as his parents. My partner suffers from anxiety/depression but manages it well with medication. His work have been very good and he's been able to take 2 months off fully paid to be with his father, who is struggling massively with the loss of the mother. I'm fully supportive of partner spending as much time as possible with his father to help him.

However his father is now insisting that partner comes to spend Christmas with me, leaving his father on his own. I'm really not happy with this - his father has mentioned wanting to be dead quite a few times, and when my partner was at work the other day (he only went back, part-time, in the last week) his father was so distressed he ended up calling the Samaritans for help. I've told partner that I really don't want him leaving his father alone over Christmas, especially as this is the first since the mother died...

I'm away working abroad all next week, I'm already stressed out about that, would I be unfair to tell partner that he's not to come to mine, that I don't want the extra stress of worrying about his father being all on his own over the Christmas period?

Why can’t all 3 of you be together in one location?

This is very sad, maybe his Father wants a quiet Xmas to reflect, or maybe he just isn't interested in Xmas this year, understandably. Xmas is the worst time of year if you are grieving and usually a huge relief when it's over. It takes an enormous amount of effort to try and manage emotions around others.
I would ensure his Father knows he is not alone, that he is much loved and will be missed, but that you respect his choices.

@MiddleagedBeachbum I have pets that no one is available to look after....I also don't have a relationship with his father, haven't seen him in nearly a decade. His father doesn't like me because I'm Catholic, divorced and foreign. I'm not going to get into bad mouthing him, but he treated the mother terribly and a lot of what he's now feeling is probably guilt.

Why can't you all spend Christmas together? When FIL died (mid 80s and he'd had declining health for a while) we had the whole family here for Christmas so MIL was surrounded by love.

Sorry, cross post

Could partner split his time? Morning/ early afternoon with you then later with his dad?

@squeekychicken We live 200 miles away from each other, so not possible, unfortunately. Partner doesn't drive so would be coming by public transport.

I don't have any family in the UK and have spent 20 of the last 25 Christmases on my own (partner usually is working on the day).

What does your partner want to do?

@Patty101 He'd rather spend the day with his father because he's worried about him.

To be honest I think my partner is finding the fact that his father doesn't want him there over Christmas quite distressing. He understands that his father doesn't want to 'celebrate' Christmas in any sort of way, because he doesn't either.