My FIL is coming to stay for 2 weeks at Christmas

[Asiama]

And I am soooooooo happy about it that I am bursting with excitement and want to share the news with everyone!

I have fantastic in-laws and love my FIL loads (my wonderful MIL is no longer with us). This is the first Christmas we will be spending together as he lives in another country and normally spends it with his elderly mother.

I don't have a relationship with my parents, had rubbish Christmases with them as a child / teenager and wasn't allowed to visit for Christmas after I had moved out (and they wouldn't visit us either) so this feels like such a big thing to me!

Also, if anyone has any tips on how I can make it a lovely Christmas for him then please tell me!! I'm sure he will be missing his mother and I want him to have a nice time.

Oh and we have often had him over for 2 weeks and we cry when he leaves because we just love having him here, so I'm not worried about the length of his visit.

Christmas Eve about 5 pm? BBC2 Carols from Kings.
It's a must-watch for us.

So lovely! You could save the star /fairy for the top of the tree for him to put it in to make it complete.

Yay so many more ideas!

Aldi Florentines sounds delish! I think he will be glad not to eat stollen, he gets a 2kg stollen from his mum every year... except we won't from this year because Brexit has made gift sending more bureaucratic and expensive anyway I digress...

When I used to go to PILs for Christmas we would have goose. Then I found out after MIL passed that FIL doesn't like goose and they only did it because I liked it so much FIL likes duck so that's what I'm going to attempt. He likes fruity things to go with meat so I will make cranberry sauce too, or maybe plum jam? He loves apples but not so much apple sauce. FIL is a pickier eater than DC!

I've never heard of Carols from King's before, but message received loud and clear! the snowman tour is something he would enjoy, but he won't be here for the one closest to us.

We have a Christmas pyramid windmill thing which I got from PILs. I don't think I can bring myself to do Bunte Teller. That was very much a MIL thing and I think we would all be in floods of tears. She would make a little Santa for each one of us like the attached pic.

Decorating the tree together is a great idea and I would love to choose a bauble together with him. Because of when he arrives we wouldn't be able to do it until after Boxing Day. That's too late really isn't it? And where do you go for nice single baubles? Garden centres? I've only ever bought a multipack from the supermarket!

If you’re doing duck you could roast it with apples and prunes - that will give you the fruity element.

You could choose him a special bauble ahead of time, wrap it up beautifully and he could open it and put it on the tree when he arrives. Depending on budget there are lots of lovely things to be had - look for example at Etsy, or the gorgeous hand painted ornaments at perchedbird.com, or you could go more upmarket at Georg Jensen (my favourite! They usually have a sale on around Black Friday).

John Lewis have lovely individual baubles for sale online.

Other places: Cox & Cox, Nkuku, Skandium. As well as M&S, JL, Sainsbury’s etc.

If he likes apples but not apple sauce DHs Oma used to carefully slice the top off apples, core them and fill the hole with cinnamon and butter (and brown sugar if making them into a dessert).
They served them with xmas dinner which was usually goose and pork but they would probably go with duck too.
Aldi sometimes has proper schnapps at Christmas too, not the awful stuff you can usually get over here. DH has a beautiful little flask his mum bought him that he keeps topped up for dog walks etc.

Post-Christmas pantomime, if there is one near you? Very British and probably new to him.

An Update: FIL was supposed to arrive today, but his country decided on Sunday that anyone who comes back from the UK has to quarantine for 14 days. FIL has a bad feeling about this and worries he can't help his very elderly parents if anything happened to them during quarantine, so decided not to come. We are all so sad. I nearly cried when I saw his stocking today.

Poxy virus and proxy rules. We are all triple jabbed and it still wasn't good enough.

Oh I’m so sorry @Asiama
That’s utterly shite

So sorry :(

I am so so sorry. My parents also cancelled their visit from abroad and having a cancellation like that right before Christmas feels like a punch in the face. Can you change the tickets for Easter?

Either way please take care of yourself and try to do some things that are a treat for you two for Christmas. ❤️

Finally a positive thread 😆

I agree with a PP - do a stocking for him!

Merry Christmas 🎄