Namechanged for this one as some RL friends/family are on MN.
I'm from a big family, all now grown up and some with kids of our own. We're mainly pretty close although all sometimes driven to distraction by my mother who is well-loved but has always been on the unpredictable and irrational side. For xmas, easter and bank holiday weekends, we generally still go to my parents' house and have family meals and outings. It gets a bit stressful but is usually worth it to see everyone and catch up. It also pleases my mother (even though she says that none of us "have to" come back...)
Recently, a family member that no one gets on with (F) has returned from overseas where he has been working for more than a decade. F is intermittently camping out at my parents' house and refusing to tell them what his long term plans are. He just comes and goes. (He freelances so could work pretty much anywhere.) They say they don't want him to stay long-term but I have no idea whether they've told him this or whether he cares.
While F is there, the atmosphere in the house is deeply unpleasant. He and my mother row and snipe at each other while she pretends that everything is completely normal. The rest of us try to stay well out of it but are walking on eggshells all the time. My mother intermittently accuses the rest of the family of not sticking up for her with F but we know from long past experience that if any of us do criticise him she always takes his side against us. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. Me and other siblings have long deliberately detached ourselves from F and do not engage with him at all beyond "pass the salt, please" type conversations.
While he's there, she continues to cook her set-piece dinners which the rest us are compelled to attend and witness her attempts to start normal conversations that lead nowhere except insults and nastiness. It's like being in a play about family dysfunction.
I've decided that I just don't want to go back at all while this relative is living there. I definitely don't want to sit through another one of those dinners and I also don't want my DC exposed to the atmosphere which is horrible and impossible to explain to a little kid.
Is it best to tell my mother this up front and face upsetting her or should I just make excuses for all upcoming holidays until F moves on somewhere else? (If he ever does...) I could cope with seeing him for a couple of days over xmas but that is my maximum annual tolerance level.
I'd love it if my parents came to see me and DC more often instead but my flat is tiny and they don't seem to be comfortable either sleeping on the sofabed or taking my room and letting me sleep there instead.