A Challenging Family Christmas? Make yourself at home here

[Hissy]

While some have the christmas experiences shown in the adverts, others are starting to feel the impending doom of family festivities.

For some the pressure may have already started to build and this is a thread to support anyone who identifies with this sentiment.

This is a thread for you to come and just be, come and talk to us about it, we'll hear you and listen and understand.

Ongoing support for those of us with Problem Families, or family dynamics that make us feel sad/bad/mad is available as ever on the Stately Homes Thread

I belong here.

I'm choosing to spend Christmas alone this year, rather than visiting parents, however I am not really coping with the texts/calls/emails saying how much they will miss me and I'm selfish/letting them down.

Caulk, good for you. Have spent many christmas's doing what everyone else wants. Trying to deal with difficult in laws, family rows etc etc. why not be selfish, although it sounds as though your family will keep on at you! Love this thread, but i do feel for people going through a bad time. Can be a hard time of year to get through.

I spent seven years staying with family at Christmas (after moving out) and being terrified of the step father "accidentally" touching me up, and that kind of rubbish. Definitely better not being there, but hearing how I'm letting them down is tough.

dreading it.

I don't want to be anywhere.

But this year DS1 is in the country (none of them were around last year) and, at his request, we're going to my parents, with whom I have a million unresolved issues.

He'll have a better time, with my brothers, but I'm going to be reluctantly playing happy families for five days.

dreading it.

Five days is a long time Skolastica, does it have to be that long?

Guilty pleasures. Im so sorry for your loss

Five days is a long time Skolastica, does it have to be that long?

A complicated journey plus lack of cash to be able to spend a couple of nights in a b and b.

Already dreading it. One of 3 children, but always get lumbered with my mother, she is a passive aggressive, sulky, bitter old women, who pulls a face if things aren't done her way, will talk incessantly through any Christmas movie we watch and make grand gestures of dolling out presents and expecting total gratitude and repeated thanks, or she sulks if she doesn't think you are grateful enough.

Cant not have her here as my dad died and she has no one else to go too and she was a good mum when we were little and needed her. it all just went wrong when we started becoming independent and she cannot accept that we have our own lives. Am mainly low contact with her normally.

meddie Are we related??? That's what my DM and my Christmas sounds like ...

GuiltyPleasures, so sorry for your loss.

I lost my young brother just over 30 years ago. My mum once told me that however happy an occasion there is always a gap, a hole. She said that before he died she remembers the feeling of coming in from an afternoon's shopping, kicking her shoes off, relaxing and just feeling content. She has never had this completely relaxed feeling since.

They are wonderful parents and have continued their lives with great fortitude. We have great Christmas' together but I always know that it is hard for them, and that they can never have the thing they really want, as can neither myself or my sibling. We do however have each other and an incredibly strong bond.

Not looking forward to christmas this year. Separated from my oh in oct. Hadnt been happy for a very long time and he finally left . I suspected an affair but he wouldnt admit it despite more or less concrete proof i found. Still in the early days getting things organised re access to our son , finances etc so dont know how christmas will be. One silver lining is i wont have to spend it with toxic Mil.

Can I come in?

I have a father with dementia, who practically doesn't know or care where he goes at Christmas, and a brother with aspergers who is under-nourished and impoverished but won't accept help.

My mum and sister are at loggerheads because sis thinks mum should want to spend Christmas Day with the grandchildren, but mum had made previous arrangements to spend it with her widowed friends. There are horrible poisononous emails flying from sis to mum, with me copied in. I have a great deal I could say to both of them (the selective memory, rewriting of history, involvement of slightly unpleasant BiL) but have spent many years trying to appease both sides and am fed up with it. But it makes me very sad and churned up, no doubt bringing up all sorts of childhood stuff.

I will be Christmas Day with my partner's family. His father died earlier this year, so this is the first Christmas without him.

Boxing Day will be with my sister, BiL and difficult brother, no doubt with horrible undercurrents, and then to my parents, ditto undercurrents.

We have a five-year-old boy and just want to spend it with him and my partner, and some friends. But actually doing what I want at Christmas would kill me with guilt.

newsflash it wouldn't kill you love..

i'd suggest email your (d)M and sis and tell them to pack it in or christmas/boxing day is cancelled, and you'll be spending it with people who don't make life so fucking hard.

this is your ds christmas too, so make the traditions yours.

let the others sort themselves out. sounds like your DP family could do with some support anyway, so stay on, or tell M/sis that you will be and then let all future years be at yours. on your terms.

you really can do this....

so, as a stately home resident, I can say 'don't appease', don't 'go along with things' for a quiet life.

the quiet life you'll end up going ahead with isn't yours... it's theirs. at. your expense.

What have you got to feel guilty about?.

Sod feeling guilty herb, you think either your sister and your mother feel any pangs of guilt for copying you in on their poisonous e-mails to each other?. I doubt that very much. Do not engage with such people.

Guilt is truly a useless emotion. Not doing what you want for a change at Christmas will feel you with regret. Love your own self for a change.

I know you're all right.

I am going to please myself next year. I promise. This year a truce has broken out, with my mum saying she'll come to sis's on boxing day (which is a huge effort for her - she's 82, and dad's 87), and it turns out sis's daughter, my niece, has just been diagnosed with a permanent brain abnormality, which (partly) explains her mental behaviour. When the dust has settled, I shall be having words about future expectations.

Next year I'll be 50, and far too old to play the 'good girl' for the sake of family peace.

I am in for, let's say, an "interesting" Christmas...at least a not normal one. I see my situation as a sort of passive toxic one as opposed to the full on active variety that some of you here describe ( to you for the duration).

My 25th wedding anniversary is ten days before Christmas, we live 500+ miles from dh' s family of origin.
My mil is declining in health to the extent that she is dying. Lung cancer, treated, but now oxygenation trouble and she is losing brain function. It is sad for anyone to suffer so. Fil did not like the care she received in the nursing home so brought her home and is caring for her himself. He is 80 and still going strong. Dh has two sisters local to mil, but I am not sure what they are doing to help...nor sure if fil would give them due credit if they did help.

We made a visit late August and planned to go last week (Thanksgiving here) but did not due to schedules, short time, etc. Dh wants to go for Christmas, but not Christmas...go 20th return 24th. He understands how dysfunctional his family is and wants to come home for our family Christmas. He also wants to work the week between holidays as it will be quiet in the office and he has tons to do. I'm good with all of that and can have everything ready, bar a grocery run, done before we go.

He wants to leave my 20 yo dd (Dd1) there until New year's to help because she has had nurse assistant training (although never worked as one). Dd1 has had significant challenges with anxiety, depression, and other more serious MH conditions that I won't mention. So I am not in favor of her staying which might trigger another downward spiral (she is doing really well now-meds finally stabilized). I asked her about it and she said she would not want to stay...as they probably won't do Christmas at all and she doesn't want to miss Christmas with Dd2 who is 6. I will mention to dh that dd 1 probably won't be staying.

I do not really have a relationship with mil. I was barely tolerated when there. When I choose to not go, nothing was said about it- never a "we missed you" or "please come next time". It may seem petty to remember twenty years ago, but when my dc were little (and my own mother deceased years before) I remember calling her on the phone just for someone to talk to or for a little support...nope. She answered the phone with "Oh, it's you" and so after the third time of that (a bit slow me) I was trained to not call her.

I think the thing I am dreading will be sil' s comments about me not having to deal with mil. I think I will shoulder shrug and raised eyebrows and say nothing. It irks me because my mum has been gone these (since '80) 34 years and she is somehow begrudging me because I don't have this to deal with? Is that what is going on?

I think it also irks me because mil and fil have bent over backwards supporting her (divorced) for so many years and now sil has a crap attitude when it is her turn to help them. Silence is golden...It may be a part of why dh wants to bug out on Christmas Eve.

Thanks for letting me vent. It may be more for Stately Homes but, Hissy , I appreciate that you started this thread and wanted to give a bump (however boring).

and and for all.

Boring is good indeed, Band. I'm trying to settle into boring and enjoying being busy with mundane stuff. Hoping it all stays quiet so I can have my first proper Christmas with my little family without my mother blackening it all. :)

Hi Good, I think it is a blessing to be able to find contentment and pleasure (not to over stretch expectation or anything ) in everyday types of things. My dh does enjoy our kids and the things they do and really appreciates our quiet family. I think this is why he wants to have Christmas at our home (and this is generally true as he says he doesn't want to drive over the mountains in the winter due to weather risks...Well that's an excuse).

I love Christmas lights, the music, COOKIES , and brightly colored wrapping paper. I can make all of those things happen so I can get through it in fairly good form.

Love the 'idea' of Christmas, hate the hefty dose of obligation which comes with it in regards to spending it with family members I don't like!
Baby's first Christmas so focusing on making some traditions of our own (as advised by MN members on a previous thread. Just feel pulled in all directions by family members, especially my over-bearing MIL!

Herbaceous: I feel for you, I'm in a similar boat. The guilt can be worse than doing something you don't want to! I guess we could always just do what we want, then spend Christmas drunk to erase the guilt?

I definitely belong here, DH has already received the "you are so selfish" phone call from MIL because we are not spending the entire day with her. Apparently entirely ignoring the fact that I also have family members would be selfless

Christmas is going to be hard for us this year. My wonderful MIL is dying of cancer - she is unconscious most of the time, and when awake, doesn't always recognise dh. She has survived longer than any of the medical profession thought she would - weeks and weeks ago, a doctor told us he wouldn't be surprised if she lasted less than a fortnight - but she is still here.

And I feel like such a hard-hearted bitch for even thinking this - but I wish she wasn't. She has zero quality of life - she is either medicated up to the eyeballs, to the point of unconsciousness, or she is in constant pain - how bad, we don't know, but given that she has minimised everything to her family, when she complains of pain, it must be terrible. She's barely eating or drinking, is dehydrated and needs 24/7 care.

Dh and Dbil are in bits, waiting for her to pass on. Thankfully she didn't die on dh's birthday, this week (one of his fears), but they are both in limbo, unable to plan anything, just living from day to day.

I am trying to keep going, for everyone's sake. I usually do the bulk of Christmas, because I have the time for all the stuff it involves, but usually dh is involved in the planning, and deciding what to get for people - but this year, he can't get his head round it at all. I have already cancelled my 50th birthday party, because there's every chance MIL might have died, so we'll have a funeral to plan and dh might be away.

We don't know if MIL will still be with us at Christmas - and if so, what do we do? In my heart, I feel it would be wrong to take the dses down to MIL's - they are 17, 19 and 21, but I still want them to have a Christmas that doesn't involve eating their christmas dinner at the other end of the room from their dying grandmother - yet another reason why I feel like such a bitch, as dbil, who lives near her, would end up having to do Christmas day alone, and dh would fly down to see her on Boxing day. And do you buy a gift for a woman who is unconscious - and if so, what? I have thought of getting her a silk scarf/stole, that they can put round her, and she can feel it (she is doing a lot of plucking at the bedding when she is restless, so she might be able to feel it - I don't know).

We have had to look ahead, and with ds2's uni exams, the dog's vet hospital visit (she needs orthopaedic surgery for cruciate ligament ruptures in both knees, and we can't put that off), we are running out of days before Christmas to have a funeral, if she dies in the next few days. It could be the 23rd!

And I can't help thinking Christmas is going to be horrible, whether she is still with us or not - either waiting for the phone to ring, and knowing dh is going to have to fly south on Boxing day, or grieving her loss.

Oh SDTG, that's a heart breaking post. How lovely to read the words "my wonderful MIL" though - in that you are truly blessed. I hope she knew how much she meant to you, and that she had a wonderful DIL. The price of love truly is grief, but it sounds like you have a great extended family to grieve with. Wishing you well.

SDTG to you.

Im so sorry you are going through this. My lovely MIL died 11 years ago yesterday (3rd) and we had the funeral on the 15th. She was a very funny compassionate forward thinking modern lady even though she was in her early 80s. The dates this year are the same as they were in 2003 too. The 3rd was a Wednesday that year also. And i cant hear the Gary Joules version of Mad World without thinking of her because that was a huge hit at the time.