Festive family fury.? Don't bottle it up. Let it all out here.

[Mincepiedermama]

Families and Christmas eh?

What have they done?
How has it left you feeling?
How do you plan to move on from here?

So far I've had the usual torrent of advice from my MIL mixed with observations about our handling of ds's diabetes. (She knows nothing about diabetes. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!)

Got that feels a little better but there's more to come.

MP, didn't realise you had been married

yah when I was 18 until I was 21

I had pickle forks, a 6-person dinner set of Portmeiron and I always wore long Laura Ashley dresses

You can see why I wanted to stab people

lol

I still want and I now feel I need pickle forks . LOL

Pickle forks are STUPID

For a start, if you actually tried to get pickle out of a jar with one, you would drop it irretrievably and end up with a jar full of forks covered in pickle, but no pickle on your plate

Pickle forks assume all sorts of unecessary decanting

They do look spectacularly pointless.
Although I accidentally picked up a box of teaspoons at Ikea not realising they were extra long handled ones and actually, erm, they are quite useful for stirring my morning coffee, which I drink in the car in one of these and they are also handy for getting to the bottom of the mango chutney jar.

I am so sorry I didn't see this thread earlier as I would have liked to arrange to visit Batters at home when her MIL was there

MP pickle forks are just the very thing when one brings out the party Suzy surely. Wouldn't you just die without party Suzys?

I'm imagining you floating around in a Laura Ashley dress with puff sleeves and extremely small flowers on it. I'm glad you're free now.

Happy Christmas all. Hang in. It'll be over soon.

I'm sure my mum had a set of these with pastle coloured handles - I can remember being quite fascinated by them as a child........think its time to go back to bed....

Aaargh. Every time anyone leaves the house, say, to go to the carpark and get stuff out of a car, particularly after dark, MIL worries about them. We live in East London, yes, but it's not fricking Lebanon or East Compton or something. Jesus fucking christ, if I have to listen to her warning people to be bloody well careful when they leave the house another time I will scream.

I have lived in this house for 8 years. I have been mugged, oh, wait, never. I have been strangled to death ... hmm ... never. Oh, wait, there was that time a gang drugged me and stole my kidney, oh, wait ... never.

Message withdrawn

Had a joint family christmas at In-Laws - my parents were invited too. (My parents are lovely for the record...!)

On being shown the present my mother gave me, ( a rather elegant evening top) dearest MIL looked at it and pulled it widthways saying "oh goodness I hope it's the right size; you're rather busty aren't you, it might not fit !!!!"

I replied " I was actually more interested in your opinion of the style not the size...!"

MIL is German too - very forthright and never slow to offer her opinion -she's always telling me when to have and how many grandchildren I should be providing for her grrrrrr....!

At least we live in different countries usually!

Okay - my dad came over on Christmas Eve with stepmum and evil aunty who everyone hates. Dad has a well-earned reputation for foot-in-mouth disease. As my DP said "If there's a wrong thing to say, he'll say it". He came in one and a half hours before he was supposed to visit saying "We're on a flying visit so we're not taking our coats off." Then all three of them didn't sit down until instructed to. Next comment "your house gets smaller every time I visit."

Final remark "dd looks like you, she has your teeth - rabbitty". I said "Dad, you know I have issues about that." No comment.

Then they left. Btw I have issues about my teeth, I've had "What's up doc" shouted at me from builders.

I've been thinking about it all over Christmas and trying not to let it get to me, though DP has had to put up with bad mood bear (sorry). I have thought of cutting off contact with dad before, so is it worth staying in touch with such a w*er just because he's my dad?

"so is it worth staying in touch with such a w*er just because he's my dad?".

I would have to say no it is not. Especially if you keep getting insulted in your own home.

If a "friend" treated you like this you and that person would be friends no longer. He is your Dad yes but that does not give him carte blanche to treat you like this.

BTW has this man always been like this or has he got "worse" since stepmum came on the scene?. How does she get on with him, does she get given the sort of comments as well?.

MIL didn't speak to or acknowledge me for first 20 minutes of visit to their house yesterday so sat and read Saturday's paper.

DH and I again got separate cards from his Mum. Have discussed this with court of Mumsnet before. He received a nice card made from good quality paper, I needless to say got a cheapy card. I get annoyed because she makes it so bloody obvious that I am not favoured. As far as I am concerned though MIL can f right off!. Also told outright untruths about her elder sister who I think the world of (i.e MIL and her being close emotionally).

At least they did not come over to this house this year thank god so we were spared her truly shite gravy (quite apart from the smell its so thick you could mend roads with it).

Good God at the teeth comment - so out of order !

At least MIL isn't unpleasant, just dependant and bone bloody idle. She made a great song & dance about peeling some veg for Christmas dinner (including going on about it on the phone to SIL "..and I peeled ALL the potatoes to help out") and then hasn't lifetd a finger since. My parents were here too and by contrast nothing was too much trouble and they did loads to help me & DH. You'd think MIL would be embarassed sitting on her *rse while everyone else cleared up, washed up, tidied etc etc but evidently not .

Only 8 days till she goes........

Hi ATM - stepmum's okay, dad's always been self-centered, arrogant and thoughtless, actually he improved a bit after moving in with stepmum. It's obvious she didn't have a clue what he was really like, f**k knows what he told her.

He doesn't do babies (and didn't go near any of us until we were toddlers apparently) - stepmum couldn't believe he didn't want to cuddle dd when she was a baby.

I didn't see him for three years (heaven) when mum and dad split up, sadly he kept on at my sister and eventually she begged me to get back in touch as he was driving her mad!

He's such a totally crap dad.

The television is driving me bonkers. It must always be on, on very high volume, showing ... whatever the hell is on. Ugh.

Well, my day turned out not bad, actually. Had all DSs back home (4 in all, two live away), the middle two cooked the dinner while I played computer games, yah really! and soon-to-be-ex did not have any family conferences that I'm aware of. He may save it up for later, but he didn't spoil Christmas with it at least.

Much alcohol and far too much chocolate was consumed by all, especially me.

Fortunately, er of course I should say unfortunately, we're both fresh out of parents so no in-law horror stories.

Lovely christmas....honest..every bit of it. But my MIL did manage to get up my nose big time!! DH went to pick her up at midday on Christmas day - he wanted to go at 11 but she was at church all morning!!! Arrangement was that my parents would take her home as it's sort of on the way so that DH could have something to drink. By about 4 I was knackered (up at 5am this morning and rushing around like blue-arsed fly all day as you do) and I had a cold...so needed some time to chill. My dad offered to take mil home but she said....'no, I think I'll stay the night...I usually do'. So had to entertain her all evening - she did her usual phenomenal sitting--around-doing-bugger-all trick - while DH and I ran around clearing the kitchen, making tea and sandwiches etc.... And tutting at me everytime I tried to do any tidying up ("the mess can wait for once can't it?" - no it bloddy can't it's stressing me out!!!) I didn't have a bed ready for her...she normally turfs DS#2 out of his bed so he comes in with us - but she can't quite get in to his new bunk bed so she agreed to sleep on the sofa. Morning came she sat around in her nightie for hours - we were due somewhere else at midday on boxing day and she took so long to get up that we had to drop her back home on the way to our friends which meant 6 of us in the car - illegal and dangerous.

Also mad as hell with sil. She's finally chucked awful DH out! It's taken a year and she's been through hell but it's finally done! All these years he wouldn't have mil on christmas day so Dh and I always had to. This year, while quietly hoping that mil would go there, we discovered that sil was celebrating christmas day on 24th as her son was going to be with his father on 25th. Couldn't she have taken mil in hand on 25th to give us a break??? So mil was yet again free to come to us on christmas day!!!! She's OK as mils go but still tiring and irritating and so lazy it drives me mad!! She didn't stick so much as a nose in the kitchen the entire day - nor clear a single plate. SIL was also due to do the present run to my other sils in Southampton but decided that she wasn't up to it...fine with that but couldn't she have decided that in time for us to make alternative arrangments??? Too late for posting by then. Grrr......

However.... my DH's family are all OK really. This is the only time that I ever get narky with them and this has really helped... . I feel full of festive sweetness and light now.

Ok, my turn - now she's gone! To all of you who have lazy-arsed rellies who sit around doing nothing - can I have them please? My frigging sister has been here for four days and she has done nothing but help, ask if she can help, help without being asked and generally faff around in our tiny kitchen so that I can't ever get in there. OK, in theory it's nice to have someone do the washing up after xmas dinner. In actuality it's an enormous guilt-fest and bloody annoying - clashing about trying to wash up EVERY SINGLE TIME we were trying to get DS off to sleep, unplugging the fridge overnight because she was "helping" by plugging in the coffee machine (hmm, thanks for that), oh and incidentally always leaving the milk out (so helpful), and not ever letting you make yourself a fcking cup of fcking tea in your own f*cking kitchen but leaping up and sayin "I'll do it! Let me!" Aaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh fuuuuuucccckkk offffff.

I would give anything for a fat lazy rellie who would snooze on the sofa and eat all my chocs any day.

Back again, just to say dad rang last week to comment that we hadn't visited since last Xmas and when can we meet to swap pressies and Easter eggs(!)

Me stunned said will check availability but should be okay next week.

Cr**d myself this morning when ringing to confirm arrangements. Went to dad's house today and okay'ish though I think dad was treading on eggshells...

Dad has used up 8 of 9 lives lets see how things go though I can't see him keeping this up for long...

P.S. was thegrandadwhostolechristmas last year!