I am fed up with having our christmas ruined by OLD LADIES

[moanmoanmoan]

have TOTALLY name changed to have a good WHINGE

DH and I both have divorced mothers. Our mothers are HARD WORK - they are negative and bullying and bitter and for this reason, all of our siblings are child-free and refuse to have our mothers at christmas.

So we are left with these two women for several days over the christmas period. They dont' even like each OTHER very much. Our siblings won't visit because they don't like our mothers, and we can't really have friends over because our mothers are both rather appallingly rude.

I am just feeling MISERABLE. I love christmas but feel like I'm doing EVERYTHING for other people and no one is giving us any slack or help with these women.

Please kick me up the arse and help me see it in a more positive light.

You have my sympathy. I have parents who are absolutely bound to ruin Christmas if we spend it with them. Most years I don't invite them, nor do my siblings. but every so often one of us cracks - me this year - and they come. I am really not looking forward to this Christmas at all.

Choosyfloosy is right though you have choices and you shouldn't blame your siblings for not wanting the parents either - in my family none of us want them.

My father doesnt' drink. he doesn't approve of father christmas or christmas trees or alcohol or snowmen or stockings or Rudolph or having fun. Plus he obesssively won't eat anything with sugar or fat or spice of any kind. and he insists on being fed at regular intervals or he tantrums, like a todder. Plus he never stops talking from dawn to dusk - he has obnoxious and utterly boring opinions which I have heard many times before. he particularly likes to talk about the state of his bowels and bladder. In great detail. And if you leave the room he follows you, still talking.

aaarrrghghhh.

moanmoanmoan - can't you invite some old codgers over to "flirt" with your respective old bats mothers? Or send them out carol singing/ holly collecting/ to the pub with mince pies??

It sounds vile for you and god bless you for being so charitable - ah, now there's an idea for you - why don't you tell them both that you and the family are going to be helping down at the local soup kitchen on Christmas Day and they will be expected to come too? only minor disadvantage to that is that thye might take you up on it - but I have heard form those who have done it that it is a great thing to do on Christmas Day and gives you a really warm glow inside.

Well I think you are wonderful to do this and you are setting a fabulous example to your children, and when your mum and MIL die you will have the comfort of knowing that you looked after them properly while they were alive.
My mum and my paternal grandma didn't get on (largely grandmother's fault; she was very hypercritical and never forgave my mum for the fact that she got pregnant before she and my dad were married - despite the fact that this had just as much to do with him as with her ). However, we not only had Grandma for Christmas but she often came on holiday with us and my mum gritted her teeth and got on with it. I am so proud of her now for doing that, and also grateful as it meant that we were able to have a good relationship with grandma as was possible (given that she could be a cow sometimes).

You are doing something difficult but worthwhile.

send them on holiday together. Seriously if you are getting this upset about it for one year I'd can it and go awat with the family. It sounds like you deserve it.

I can sympathise. One thing that brightens it up for me is a game of " MIL bingo". My MIL is very repetitive and endlessly boasts about her glittering (and largely imagined) past. You then make a list in advance of all the things you're expecting her to say, and get points when she does. Can either run it as a competition or have a collaborative attempt to see how mayny points you can get as a family. I always insist I get double points if I have to examine her dogs' teeth and admire their pristine condition .

articlemming that's genius - also like Libra's bitching dinner idea

we do that already arctic, lost it's appeal about 5 years ago

Phew, not just me then (we have 4 grumpy pensioners this year!).

Kathy you are a dear.

Article - excellent idea!

Moanmoan - Consider it charity work. I think the non drinker needs to have a little nip slipped into her coffee though .

You totally have my sympathy and you are by no means on your own. I get my divorced mother (christmas & boxing day) and my grandfather, her father (boxing day), although he is much better that my mother.

Two years ago, she insulted my peas "oh, we're having them aldente, are we?", told me my beef was "on the chewy side" which is wasn't btw and just nitpicked her way through the day, I didn't bite though until we sat down at the table and I told DH "enjoy this christmas meal cos next year, we've all been invited over to my mothers", she nearly fell off her chair

Last year, she didn't give us any hassle.

Aw Kathy you are so NICE

Funnily enough, before I had kids we DID soup kitchens for JUST THIS REASON!!! But I don't think I'd want toddlers running around there...

We wouldn't be able to afford to go away at christmas and TBH wouldn't want to - I like being at home.

Will see it as an act of charity!!!

Funnily enough I do know a lot of older men but they are all far, far too lovely to palm off with either of our mothers

Love MiL bingo; at work we play "staff briefing bingo" which is always good fun too!

I strongly agree with whoever it was that said you have each of them over for one little bit of the festivities and not together. Or that you give them their Christmas pressies in advance and send them both off (together) on a coach trip to Butlins for "A Cliff Richards Christmas" or "Shakin Steven's festive feast" or something, lasting from the 23rd December to the 2nd of January!

Count up the siblings, eg 4 siblings = you have the mothers one year in four, what they do the other three years is not your problem

How about guilt-tripping your siblings into paying for the two mothers in law to stay at a posh local hotel - or two posh local hotels, if that would mean greater harmony. They could also pay for a local car service to drive the ladies back to the hotel on Christmas Eve (at a prearranged time that YOU decide, of course) and bring them back to you on Christmas day (ditto).

That way you'd get some time to yourself, you could put the children to bed when you wanted to, and would be able to do stockings when you wanted to.

Can't you invite both of their ex-husbands instead?

For the first time in 9 years, I will be mil free this Christmas. bil and sil are having her, and as she lives near to them, she is just going for the afternoon.

We used to have her for about 10 days. And she would criticise from the moment I picked her up.

So I am really looking forward to Christmas this year.

kathyis6incheshigh, I salute you. What a wonderful example of accentuating the positive.

Also like Libra's and arcticlemming's ideas.

Getting sibs to pay for hotels/taxis as their penance (if they won't host) also great idea.

Wish I'd had Mumsnet when MIL was driving me to the edge of a breakdown. I had to fall back on Les Dawson jokes instead:-

"The doorbell rang - I knew it were her - because the mice were all throwing themselves in the traps"

lmao @ fennels father.

blimey.

my ex's father has similar traits, but is also german so thats a good thing, cos i couldn't understand what he was saying, yet i used to crap myslef cos he sounded so 'angry' all the time!!!!