Christmas compromise - who was BU?

[orangesandcloves]

DH, his sibling, me and my parent always (20+ years) spend Christmas Eve at his parents. That's our main Christmas celebration (we're not from UK). This year his mum is very ill, suffering from some strong medicine side effects and can't host. We offered to cook dinner and bring it to them, but she declined.
DH has said prior he would just pop by to say hello and give them our presents, then come home so we would have dinner.
Then the day before he announces he is going to his parents as they invited him and his brother to celebrate together at 7pm, apologising not to have invited others and hoping we'd understand. I was a bit upset by the last minute change as I was expecting my DH to visit them earlier in the day, leaving us enough time to have our Christmas dinner. I said to DH that we agreed we'd compromise that way, to which he got defensive and argued the compromise here is that he goes only for two hours instead of the whole evening.
In the end we ate our dinner at 10pm. Who was BU with Christmas expectations?

Cooking being limited at your country home can be sorted, obviously. Get a couple of airfryers.
Honestly for someone with a 'country home' you are finding grievances where none exist.

I think you might have a wrong image of our "country home". It's an old homestead with no insulation with a cozy inside temp of a 4 degrees celsius and it takes time to heat it with fires. We do have an air frier, but you can't stuff a big piece of meat inside.

You nailed it, it was the sudden change of plans that threw me. I then couldn't make different arrangements as I had so many obligations and work to do. I was then berated and accused of all sorts of things just for questioning DH's new plan so I wanted some outsiders opinions.
It was fine in the end, I got busy with decorating the tree and had some snacks along the way so wasn't starving. I was a bit disappointed though and DH probably found that annoying.

As it's been over 20 years and this is the first time MIL is so ill and this has happened, I'd give them all a pass. She clearly doesn't feel up to much and could only cope with seeing her sons. If she's been a good host for the last 20 years, I'd let it go this time.

I agree and I did accept the situation, it's was just one of these things.. It just showed me that I would really miss this kind of family gathering if things would change one day.

Maybe it’s time for you to do the hosting in future. Let your in-laws pass the baton to you.

Exactly this.

I can u detained that she wasn’t up to hosting everyone. Thats fair enough.

However, dh should have respected your re-arranged meal times as well, and perhaps gone after you’d eaten.

His very ill mother asking to see him at Christmas, but not feeling up to having all the family over is fine. You shouldn't have made an issue out of it.

I wouldn’t be ok with DH disappearing for Christmas. There are so many reasonable solutions that would have let you celebrate as a family together. If they wanted just the son’s, they should accept an alternate time.