How do we tell MIL we won't be coming for lunch - but will arrive in time for gifts?

[SpecialPatrolGroup]

Christmas alternates between Christmas day and boxing day at the in laws - this year its boxing day.

We have two DCs - 1yo and 3yo and I dread lunch at the inlaws every year - lunch is awful (this year she has bought a hostess trolley to store the offering which will be cooked at 6am and served at 1.30pm).

We have a 200 mile drive to get there.

Don't want to rush on boxing day morning to get DCs ready then 4 hour drive to arrive to sit in front of 10 adults spectating as I try to keep the DCs under control with a lunch they won't eat.

It is hell on sticks so this year DH and I have agreed that although we will attend the day will be a more leisurely affair for us and we will arrive by around 4pm before the present giving begins.

Will still have to endure the prawn ring from iceland style buffet but...

How do we explain this without breaking her heart?

seems to me you are being run ragged by your inlaws: y are all grown up now, so time to break tradition and make your own family tradition. Put yourself and your immediate family first, spent Christmas day and boxing day at home, and then travel to the inlaws before new year.

Tough if they don't like it - its your Christmas too. I feel sorry for your kids - 3yo will need a day of home after all the build up and excitement of Christmas day.

Maybe you could start some new extended family traditions - get them to come to you at New Year? Or just before Christmas? Maybe spend Christmas eve with your closer inlaws?

Starting point is work out whats important to you about Christmas - family, religion, duty, obligation, food, presents, kids, relaxation.

your parents dictate your Christmas traditions when you are a child, but you decide the when you are an adult - not just for yourselves, but for your children too.

Is it not possible to travel up the night before?

You can go really late, and just put the kids to sleep in the car, pj, sleeping bag, etc. This is what we do when we have to drive long distances. It means we can go to bed, and wake up fresh at the destination.

Shongolo - that doesn't work if you only get the bank holidays off

QueeheeeheeeheenOfShadows - for the first time we are getting our Christmas at home - just the four of us with my parents popping in but essentially, letting us have the day to ourselves and I'm so looking forward to this and a couple of glasses of wine with DH in the evening so really don't want to give this up to go to inlaws.

So technically we are starting our own tradition and DH has promised that we won't be going to inlaws on Christmas day next year despite family tradition of alternate days. So I'm planning to have a lovely day to give DH the extra push to stand up to the inlaws so this may be the break in the tradition - also planning to invite them down to us next boxing day - will mean not seeing the extended gang but will mean a relaxing Christmas for us with the kids.

DH does need to learn to stand up to the in laws, espacially given that when we go through the nightmare of the meal he is busy drinking lager with his brother whilst I soldier on through it.

In terms of it only happening once a year I agree, and the journey isn't a one off - we go to them every 8 weeks throughout the year so know the pain of the journey well - any other visit we arrive and the kids get to let off steam, play, get entertained by their grandparents, the difference at Christmas is that the Grandparents are entertaining 10 other family members, catering for 12 and don't have the time to get involved with the kids so it really is left to me whilst the remainder of the family are busy eating and drinking and being waited on.

May say something along the lines of my family wanting to spend a cupleof hours with the kids in the morning as they won't see them for most of the week so we'll have to leave later?

Do your children have to sit at the table at all/for a long time? Can you not do them a quick buffet style meal on arrival and let them play with their new toys/presents while you eat?

When I'm at the inlaws after lunch when the oldies just want to sit around and sleep I take the kids to the park to let them run off some steam

Yes - the gifts aren't opened until after lunch - the process is very important to them all!!!

Does nobody else have children?

It is impossible to keep young children at the table, especially at 1 and 3.

Can you arrange early enough to do a run around with them at a local park so they manage to get some fresh air and activities before arriving for lunch?

You ring her up and tell her the truth. You love going to visit them, but you have a problem with the children. They are too young to sit happily at an adult table after 4hrs in the car. How can this be organised? Ask her for help in solving the problem.

Do they have a garden? Can the children sit at a special children's table, give them some titbits which they can graze on, give them a place to run about in and let them do what they want (with provisos if nec. like be quiet when you come into the dining room but help yourselves from this plate as often as you like etc).

by SpecialPatrolGroup"Maybe I should suck it up and be grateful for small mercies...

"

Yes, I thinkl this is your only option for this year. You will only offend them if you start trying to get out of having a meal with them. If you're going at all, imo, you have to go for the meal.
However

1. you really shouldn't be expected to drag the dc on a 200 mile trip over Christmas in the future. They will start complaining about it soon, and with good reason imo. Let ILs know this year that you think that the journey is getting a bit much for you all, and you think that the time has come for you to atart having your Christmas' at home, where they of course are welcom to join you.

2. Your ILs don't sound that lovel;y if they they are the sorts of people who refuse to go to your wedding if they don't get their own way! They sound manipulative.

3. The food does sound awful. yanbu for not wanting to go.

I don't know why people don't ask parents and ILs when they stopped going to their parents and started hosting Christmas themselves? It seems utterly ridiculous that adult children are carting their own children all over the country, so that their own parents can see them at Christmas. I'm sure that the children themselves want to be in their own home. I would either get them to see you, or just do your own thing and say that you will see them at a different time.

We stopped going to my mum's for Christmas when we got married. I do agree that it's our turn to make the traditions now - when I was a child we always went my aunt's for Christmas so there is no big tradition of being at my mother's house for Christmas anyway.

I think the OP just needs to tackle the MIL head on: they're the only children, they won't behave for a lunch that appeals to the adults, we will be arriving later, really looking forward to it (fingers crossed behind back).

Seeker's idea is a great suggestion: DH and I once spent Boxing Day in the Brecons with a picnic and it was lovely. A surprising number of people out and about (probably escaping from their families too).

Just invite everyone to yours I know you said that all of your DH family all live near each other but so? Just invite them if they come everyone can be together at your home if not then you don't have to do much cooking.

If your in-laws ask why you can't come up to yours just say you want to spend the holidays at home and moving the kids about earlier in the morning is getting to be a pain.

YOu and your other half are adults now and like other posters have said it's time to make your own traditions, if your other half wants to still go then make him look after the kids while you have a few glasses of wine.

Two thoughts :

1. Make sure DH understands he is also responsible for DCs that afternoon and that you take a dim view of sloping off to drink lager and leaving you to it.
2. ASK for help. Say to an aunt or whoever is sitting there - please can you read DC a story or something.

ASK THEM. Stop them spectating. Delegate.

Why not invite all 8 people to yours for boxing day and put them up for the night - cook a delicious meal for ten people and keep everyone happy - problem solved your dh gets to see all his fmaily and you get to do all the cooking so it willbe just as you like it

I am a regular but have name changed.

My XH and I used to have to do this interminable journey / dinner thing to my in-laws as well.

We were the first (by years and years) to have kids so there were no other kids for our DS's to play with.

He never said anything. I fumed. I would be left with the kids to control while my MIL bust her guts doing a fab dinner (she is a great cook), and the rest of the family tut tutted at their awful behaviour.

I wanted to change it so many times, and XH wouldn't speak up or do anything about it. Coupled with this was the fact that my parents lived away at the time and were never about for Christmas so we had to have his parents on Boxing Day.

Fast forward to the rest of the family having kids and it became rigid. This year my family Christmas Day, yours Boxing Day. Next year it alternated.

It was hell on wheels and OP you have my sympathies.

Should add, the in-laws and co were all tee total so not even any wine to chug.

seeker's suggestion seems good. and when you get there explain that the DCs have already eaten so they can play with new toys they have already recd whilst all the adults eat. if DCs want to join in they can have a plate to pick at. there is no way a 1 and 3 yr old should be made to sit through a long lunch. they do not enjoy it and nor do the adults. also agree with katisha - get the disapprovers to do something useful (and your husband).

'However - I would love to say 'we love Christmas with you but trying to enjoy the meal with kids going bonkers fills us both with dread' but in reality I don't think this is an option, they do tend to take offence easily and being honest just won't cut the mustard here.'

See, this is it. I was just thinking, 'why not be honest, they'll understand if they are nice people' but you've said they'll get offended - really, IMO, tough!

If they are that sort of person then nothing you do is going to make them happy unless you go along with the whole shebang.

People should not get offended this easily, and if they do, they should learn that the consequences are they won't see their family too often. Just my thoughts..

Fwiw, my parents still insist on having dinner with my grandmother, every single year, because she is on her own - well, the fact is she is a moany, manipulative old bird most of the time (has nice moments!) and though of course here is love there, I really do detest spending time with her.

So since she started coming to theirs, I don't go. I don't bring the kids to learn as I did that 'it's family so you put up with them, however awful they are'.

We stay put and enjoy ourselves, see my parents before or after The Grandam, and pop in to see her sometime between boxing day and New Year, mainly because she wants to give the kids some presents. I don't want her to but at least we get to choose the time and don't have to wear stupid hats.

It takes the pressure off. Though my mum ALWAYS tells me a few days later all the horrible things my Granny has said behind my back once we've left

In fact I might give it a miss entirely this year. If it makes us miserable, and she really thinks of me in that way, what's the point?

I wouldn't go frrright, lifes too short to put up with nasty people, family or not.

Op, I wouldn't be driving 200 miles on boxing day year in, year out. I wouldn't be driving christmas day night either as that would mean no alcohol.

I don't blame you, I think a 4 hour drive is too much on Boxing Day.

If all the IL family live locally, can't you go up on the day after boxing day this year (given the way Xmas falls) ? So they get their long, adult lunch, you get to relax on boxing day, then they can pop over for an informal get-together at your ILs the day after boxing day?

All this tradition and 'turns' is more trouble than it's worth - I just do what suits me and everyone seems to accept that. I make it clear anyone who wants to come to my house is welcome, if they don't, then we'll see them at some point between Xmas & new year. Rigid processes, large families and toddlers just do not mix!

In your position, I'd phone my MIL myself and make arrangements, and be completely honest (although you could avoid mentioning the hostess trolley and prawn ring) - the attempts at blackmail and threats are less likely (and certainly less effective) than with their own son.

thanks Geek, you're probably right...Oh, but what of the inheritance?! It's all going to my Dad, what there is of it...
Mind you he doesn't want it either.

Frrright - what is your mother thinking telling you the nasty things your grandma as said about you? Ignorance is bliss and all that. Sounds like your mum hasn't helped your relationship with your gran

Spot on, BigChris. It is really complex and I've tried every way I can think of to change the 3 way dynamic - siding with mum, siding with Granny, seeing neither of them. Nothing is much good.

They have a really awkward thing going on where they loathe each other but are somehow unable to break their bond (mIL/DIL)
I get it from each of them, Oh your mother is dreadful, and Oh oyur granny might be all nicey nicey to you but she really thinks THIS

etc etc

I am stuffed whatever I do. Sorry for hijack OP!

It's still only the middle of October, for god's sake, so surely you can make a change to this tradition now, before your MIL puts the sprouts on to boil!

If I were you I'd have Christmas Day and Boxing Day at home. Nobody wants to drive for four hours the day after Christmas Day - for one thing the children don't have time to play properly with their toys, you don't have time to relax and a lot of food goes to waste.

Tell them you'll be visiting on the 27th instead. Don't ask if that's OK, just tell them that you'll be too tired on Boxing Day to make the journey. Oh and if they object, say that DH is always SO tired after all the Christmas shopping, cooking, wrapping etc, he might crash the car on the journey and they wouldn't want that, would they?

(Then wait for them to suggest you drive...)