Dreading Christmas already

[whataboutbob]

One of the worst. times of year for being pulled in 5 different directions. I am nearly ashamed To say last year I didn't invite dad/ go to his house. On the day he didn t even realise it was Christmas.
This year haven't even discussed it with DH yet. But last time dad came, DH was cleaning faeces from weird places. So I strongly suspect he'd rather it was just me, him and kids. I'm thinking of doing same this year, but stocking up dad and bros fridge in advance and going there on 27 th and taking dad home with me, via a concert at st martin's whjch is right next to the train station, and I know he'd love that.

This sounds a great compromise. Perhaps you could do something with him in the run up to Christmas also. Is there something he loved and would still appreciate?

I think that sounds like a great plan.

We'll be doing a 3 hour round trip to spend maybe 4 hours with my parents. But thats only as I feel for dad being stuck with mum and he can't do a roast, so we'll take it all to them.

Well dad loves food and any outing really but can t take anything too strident/ intellectual anymore so Baroque music should be good. I will take him out for a meal on the 21st.

I reckon you've come up with a brill plan. We only ever used to visit our grandparents on Christmas day to open presents, and to take over a nice lunch for them to have later. My mum would panic at the thought of having them over for the whole day, unfortunately my granddad had parkinsons and my nan was practically deaf and there was no way my mum could have coped with them and us two small children. But by visiting in the morning, we got to have a nice couple of hours with them, and the whole of the rest of the day to cause chaos and eat too much chocolate.

Thanks Mrsannekins it's nice to have other people's POVs!