db's step children and christmas invites

[hatwoman]

I have two dbs. both have one kid. one has two teenage step-kids - they're 17 and 19 (lovely kids but I don't know them well) I'd really like to invite both dbs (as well as my mum, fil and step-mil) for christmas but just haven't got the space for everyone. so can I say to db - I'd love to invite you but we ain;t got the space for all 5 of you? - I assume this is less offensive than inviting them but saying there's only room for three (pretty awful imo) I just feel horrible only inviting one db. what do people think?

yes, you cannpt just invite 3. It is all or nothing. However do the older kids ever go to their other parent's for christmas by any chance. If so you could subtly find out if this was their plan for this year and if it is extend the invite in the knowledge that only 3 will be coming anyway.

You can't not invite the step-kids, they're part of the family too.

How about phoning the one with the step-kids, and asking what their plans are for Christmas? It may be that they are spending it with their mother, so there isn't a problem.

but can i invite one db and not the other? the db without step kids came a couple of years ago - I invited him and sil and neice after discovering that db with step-kids was going to his mil's (are you with me?) - I just worry that doing it again is starting to look like excluding said db - something he's actually a bit sensitive about. I wondered whether to just invite the whole lot and tell them if there were more people than beds they'd have to pull straws for the hotel round the corner - but have discoverved that said hotel is shut.

Invite them all but make it clear it will be sleeping bags on the floor for the older children?

god imo if you cant invite them all then dont invite them
as afmaily of 5 we often get the feeling that poepel dont want all of us

id present the prob to al of them

You can't do that.

Cod

You can come here, we have a table that seats 12.

lol
you are KINg arthur

you cant do waht btw

You can't do that was for the HatWoman.

It IS a huge round table actually.....I felt like Guinevere when i visited

oh God no don't exclude any of them! Like the older children on teh floor idea

Invite them all and make room. It'll be cramped, but hey ho.

Or, invite them all, and yourself around to LGJ's country Manor.

QV

You are looking for a smacked bottom.

You'll never catch me, its a HUGE round table to run around

All or none I would say...

You never know, some children/teenagers would apreciate the idea of eating away from the main table. We even take DS's little table and chairs out if we are slightly overcrowded. When we have had 30+ people we do a "buffet like" party where each one serves its own plate and is responsible to find a place to sit.

We have this problem with my dp side of family as my dd1 is his sd but they include her anyway and like one of you mentioned she tends to go to her dads for christmas but the fact that they still invite her is nice.
We understand and its us that normally ends up on the floor as with my dd1 we are a family of six. lol

we do the little table in the lounge thing for Sunday lunch for the younger ones at my mums cos the dining table just doesnot stretch.

sherlock - can't do what? btw - I'm not proposing inviting db without his step kids - the q is can I invite one db and not t'other? sleeping bags on the floor makes me shudder - we have one big sitting/dining room and bedroom floor space already taken up (dds will be with us) I might be called all sorts of names on here for it but the sleeping bags idea isn't for me - not at christmas.

If my boyfriends sister invited him to her big posh house and didnt invite me because Ive got DD I'd be devastated

Try and make room, or at least talk to DB, so that he doesnt feel left out

Yep... I find it worse to hurt the feelings of somebody than having sleeping bags placed in my living room. (as long as they match the coulour of the walls)

Can you imagine if it was those horrid pattern sleeping bags?

Oh the shame

Worse still, those nylon ones that spark when they move.