I know that I'm being a bit...uncharitable?
Basically, I don't have an amazing relationship with my MIL, she's a funny one. (Long thread in itself.) We moved a year ago and she took 6 months to visit us in our new house and hasn't been since. We've been over to see her a few times this year. There isn't a physical/financial problem stopping her coming, she just has other priorities. When she does visit she takes over the tv remote, complains about my cooking, thanks me for nothing and generally makes a big deal about how hard DH works. (We both work full time and have a fair division of labour in the house - she just seems determined to think that I'm a slacker!)
We invite her for Christmas every year but she's only been once. We are never invited there because SIL stays there at Christmas and there's not enough room in the house. This year SIL is going to stay with MIL for a week over Christmas and we have been invited to go over a couple of days after Christmas to see SIL and her DP. Only, they're leaving the day we go, so we'll get to see them for about 3 hours.
I'm aware I sound stroppy (and perhaps it's PMT) but I feel like we're not really considered in any of their plans at all, but we're expected to jump when they summons us for a 3 hour audience. We're invited to stay the night when SIL has left, but to be honest the last time we visited left a bit of a bad taste: MIL would ask DH if he wanted a cup of tea, would make him one then come in and say "oh, did you want one too Eliza?" She spent most of the time in another room, is incredibly uptight (she got arsey when DH dropped a millilitre of wine onto her table cloth), she refuses to give us the wifi code (I know, first world problems) and we end up just sat in her tiny front room bored to death while the kids bounce off the walls.
I know that families are weird and require give and take etc., I just don't feel like there's any effort made to visit us. We've had a stressful couple of months and DH and I both have a good week off work to look forward to at Christmas, and I was looking forward to chilling out with the kids, playing with their new stuff, going for lovely walks on the beach, watching crap telly and generally relaxing. I'm already resenting the thought of having to brave 3 hours of Christmas traffic to go and stay there, when we could be having a lovely lazy chilled out time at home. I don't see why she can't jump on a train and come and visit us after SIL's gone, there's only one of her, while we're four people and a daft dog and a ton of crap to pile in a car.
I probably sound a bit petulant, am I being selfish? Do I just need to suck it up and go along with it? Trying to work this all out in my head before we need to RSVP and want to be clear in my head so that I don't end up having a row with DH about it so all advice welcome....