Christmas step-parent support cafe

[vanillaredbushtea]

Hi, are you a step parent? Is christmas getting a bit much? Blended family issues? I thought it might be nice to have a place to rant so here it is.

Here's mine.

My DH is insisting boxing day is set up as a Christmas day 2 as that's when we have the stepkids this year. No one wants this. He won't listen.

DH Ex insists on DSS having half Xmas day with us and half Xmas day with her. Not a major issue, just feels disjointed and like we cannot really relax. She also overwhelms DSS with a massive sack of gifts from a Santa he doesn't believe in. Yet if we did the same would give us an ear bending 🙄

We do a 2nd Christmas on Boxing Day if it’s not DH’s ‘year’ to have them Christmas Day, but it’s pared back. I generally do it the kids way now & will until they’re adults I think. On Boxing Day years I don’t serve Christmas dinner as they’ve already had one at their mums the day before (eldest dsc doesn’t like anything other than beige foods anyway & makes gagging noises & spits out mouthfuls through Christmas dinner which is horribly off putting so I generally do a separate chicken nuggets & chips for them, even on ‘our’ year when I do cook the big meal). I got really upset about it, but why expect good table manners just because it’s Christmas?! They’ve never managed it any other day, I set myself up to fail with my own vision of what Christmas should be. That’s on me.

Christmas Day with us or not, it is taxing. It’s hard. You break your back trying to make it wonderful & it’s so hard to not feel resentful when they complain about the very gifts they ask for, when you’ve saved & shopped & wrapped & planned. I spent one Xmas day evening crying in the bedroom when they were younger but I’ve given myself a wobble & work on the following:

1. I will always make an effort to give them a great Christmas, but I do it for myself and DH. It’s important to ME to know that I tried my best. I don’t need thanks from the kids for it to matter.
2. I increase my tolerance of drama from their mum around the holidays, she goes level 10 bitchy most years. It used to really affect me but I expect it now. I accept that this is because she misses her children on Christmas Day / Boxing Day / whatever day they aren’t with her & as much as I think an adult should be able to suck it up, she clearly can’t & it’s only another 8 years or so before the kids are legally adults. If she does learn impulse control between now & then - great! But if not, I’m prepared to let it go, be kind, not engage.
3. I remember that they are just kids. I remember myself being a kid at Christmas, and if I was with dad I missed mum. If I was with mum, I missed dad. It’s not the kids fault that they don’t get a conventional family Christmas but I like to think I can soften the edges a bit by making it as jolly & pleasant as possible for them.
4. I don’t force my own family traditions on them (as above, they don’t have to eat Christmas dinner, my family have always held back one gift each to open after dinner & we don’t do that here with the kids, I don’t even expect them to get dressed at Christmas if they don’t want to, whereas my lot would generally make a real effort. & no after dinner games because they aren’t interested). But at the same time I’ve resisted their mums insistence that I do the same as she does - no elf of the shelf here & no lavish Christmas Eve boxes.

the more I’ve let it go, the easier it has become. I do still feel a twinge of hurt when they aren’t exactly appreciative, I’m only human BUT they are kids & time has taught me that even if they don’t seem wowed in the moment, they do use & enjoy the gifts throughout the year so they obviously like them (consoles, phones, brand name clothes etc).

I also remind myself how wonderful my gran was, how hard she worked to give me & my siblings a magical Christmas on mums year & tell myself if I can even do half as well as she did, they’ll hopefully look back as adults & have good memories of Christmas with us.

it took me around 4 Christmas’ to get to this level of zen though. Other peoples families are hard. Children are hard. Stepkids are extremely hard.

We never get the dsc on Christmas day or boxing day as mum thinks she's the only parent, but then they have not stayed with us in 3m as the oldest is 16 and at that age and his 8 year old sister will not stay without the bro.

But we now have a one year old who we can enjoy Christmas day with, she was only 4 weeks old last year born 5 weeks early, so I say it's now her real first Christmas.

OK… I know this makes me sound like a complete cow….

But after 9 years of the EW’s batshittery - here goes…..

We couldn’t see SS last weekend (DH’s contact weekend) as she was taking the kids to the panto (they are 15 & 18). Does anyone else think this is weird and they are too old?

We don’t see SD (18) now, as she’s been completely poisoned by her mother. When we did see her for Christmas we had the constant comparisons…..

I don’t like the real tree, mummy has a fake one…..

Me (SD at 15) - could you eat your Christmas dinner with your knife & fork? Mummy lets me eat everything with my hands.

I don’t like this stuffing, mummy makes the paxo one.

Whats this red stuff (cranberry sauce). Yuck….

Unwrapping presents one year and not one thank you. That was the year I said I wouldn’t get another present until some manners were learnt.

EW still insists the kids (15 & 18) call her ‘mummy’. I come from a Northern working class family and it makes my teeth itch. It seems to be ramped up at Christmas.

Yeah we're having a second Xmas day on the 27th as well, I honestly can't be arsed. I'm leaving him to organise it all. Eldest SS(23) will be back from abroad and I'm dreading it. We don't get on.

Good to have support for this. Contact is currently such a mess, which is having a huge strain on my younger children. DSD mum has been withholding DSD due to a fallout with DH but now DSD is coming for Christmas. Speaking about arrangements it is just so obvious that DSD isn't bothered at all about where she is, or that she hardly sees her younger siblings - just wants arrangements set up around her getting presents in both places asap. All this stress and upset for my children missing their sister and she is just not bothered about spending time with them. I will put on a lovely Christmas for them all but it is just too much as I know how upset they will be when she leaves, when she has chosen to leave earlier to get more presents earlier.

Huge congratulations on your little one! I hope it’s an amazing Christmas for you

This will be my first Christmas in a decade without SD as her and her mother’s behaviour became so utterly intolerable last year that I cut contact entirely.

It has been the most peaceful year of my life and is set to be the most happy Christmas I’ve had for years.

Just an alternative perspective to the awfulness of ‘blended’ families.

We live in a different country which makes it all easier to leave everything to DH. He probably does nothing (she's an adult) but I no longer even ask if he has.

We did have miserable Xmases back in the day.

Mine is more an issue AS a stepchild, although I am also a stepmother.

My mum is having to come to us on Christmas Eve and home that night, as my stepdad has decided that 'he doesn't like children' and won't entertain my DD18 months being around him over the festive period. Apparently when he and my mum got together 15 years ago I was old enough (20 at the time) to be palatable as a grown up, and he didn't consider the potential for grandchildren 🙄 so my mum is between a rock and a hard place. It's getting to be the last straw for her, but don't want to say anything/cause her chaos over christmas so am just trying to accommodate as much as possible.

We're at home with DD and 2x DSDs (who are with us full time) on Christmas Day, which will be fab.

Then at my dads Boxing Day with dad, sister and stepmum. Due to behaviour of dickhead stepdad my lovely stepmum has extended an invitation to my mum for Boxing Day, cos everyone thinks he's a royal prick.

So, three Christmas days for us, due to the dickheadery of SOME stepparents. As a (clearly wonderful 😂) stepparent myself I appreciate it isn't easy, but Christ alive, he's a knob lol

Ouch. It's tough when the younger siblings are involved

Big up to your stepmum. She sounds amazing. It is tough to be the "outsider"

Honestly my DSD 10 is good as gold and we are having her Boxing Day this year and over my side of the family...but there is just one niggle....as my DSD is an only child both sides, and on her mum sides she has tons of aunts & uncles that spoil her, sometimes I think when she's around my family and we're doing presents etc, she thinks she will be getting the same amount of gifts? Obviously my Dad & siblings get her a gift, but it's a smaller token gesture and they spend more on my siblings & I, don't think she quite understands how this is different....She likes to distribute presents from under the tree to everyone and it's like she thinks she's going to get the biggest pile lol...I try to explain to her but it's quite difficult. Anyone else have this issue?

So sometimes, through no fault of her own, I feel a little on edge or not totally relaxed as I would like....

Mine is a weird one...

Ex (dd's dad) is coming to me and dp as he literally has no one since his dad died earlier this year. When his older kids found out (my dss and dsd) they invited themselves and requested dinner was more tea on the basis "you know mum's will be shit"

However, dp's son had said all year that he wanted to spend Xmas week with us and then last month changed his mind so dp is mightily miffed. There have been lots of issues this year and hid mum and dp have had huge fallings out because she has basically stepped out of his life and is allowing a newly 16 year old to make all life decisions for himself with no input, including failing at school, wagging off etc.

It is a complete nightmare

Have 2 DD and 2 SDD. Everyone is getting a phone, I’ve brought one, my ex one and then my DH one and his ex one. This is effective in the kids getting the more expensive things they’d like without us all being bankrupt!

the issue is. We have the kids Christmas Day, which means one of my kids and one step kid will get their phone. My DD will go to her dads in the evening but step daughter won’t get hers until Boxing Day.

I really want to invite my ex over Christmas Day morning so the kids can both get their main gift. He would come. We aren’t besties but he’s happy to come here on special occasions etc:

However, the ex wife won’t even drop the kids here, so inviting her is pointless ( he won’t even ask her which is annoying I think - because she’ll just say no) so my kids miss out because his ex is a selfish idiot basically!

@vanillaredbushtea oh, she's fab. She and my mum get on like a house on fire though, so not entirely altruistic lol

I'm not entirely sure the ex wife is being selfish just because she doesn't want to spend Christmas morning with her ex husband & partner lol....and this is coming from me, a step-mum!
Surely DSD would understand?

We all do things we don’t like for our kids though don’t we. I’m sure my ex wouldn’t love it. But he’d do it for them. It’s not happening anyway. It’s just a shame for the kids that she can’t be better and they can’t have the bonus of an extended family that can work together on the special things

We are having a pre christmas day Christmas day on the 22nd. Which is fine except I'm working til 12, in laws arrive at one and dh is working and out with clients after work every day until Thursday.
. Dss's are very alienated and nothing we ever do is quite good enough. Dss2 had a meltdown this morning because he didn't have branded socks to wear to school for example. He is 9 and you can't even see his bloody socks under his school trousers. At mums all his socks are Nike or McKenzie. Normal socks aren't acceptable

Boxing Day is DD's 18th birthday (and also dh's birthday), so we are having an afternoon party for her. DSS's are with their mum for Christmas and until the 28th but we asked if this one year as it's a 'big' birthday could we pick them up Boxing Day morning and drop them back in the evening. She said no. After she also said no to variously, them coming to our wedding, to dh's parents 50th wedding anniversary party and went bananas because dh had the audacity to go and watch dss1 at school football and pick him up from there (rather than him getting the coach back to school and her bringing him back the same way half an hour later to the usual meeting point), this wasn't really a surprise, but dh is upset about it.

I've learned to just go with whatever now as there is no point expecting any compromise or niceness from the other household. This is a woman who had an affair which ended the marriage and on the first Christmas her and dh were separated (and his first one without his kids) introduced them to her new boyfriend and had him stay over on bloody Christmas Eve!

And a year later, (by which time I had started seeing Dh) told the kids on Christmas day they would be moving in with the boyfriend an hour and a bit away. She then sent them to dh wearing football tops of the team her boyfriend supports in the town they would be moving to. So that was a lovely Christmas night surprise for dh!

Christmas makes awful people more awful it seems.

@Youcannotbeseriousreally I hear you. My exh and I had FIVE Christmas's together with him staying at mine 24th-27th every year. It was tough going, especially the first few as our marriage ended badly. But it was what was best for our then quite little kids so we sucked it up, and managed to make it as nice for them as possible. They say now they are older that they just remember them as nice normal Christmas's so objective achieved. It would take me half of January to recover MH wise mind!

Bloody hell! That’s so amazing of you both!

Surely the phones could all just go to the household doing Christmas morning (Santa)? I assume if they are old enough for phones they are old enough to know the gift is from ‘everyone’. Then just do small separate gifts.

My dss is grown up and moved away now. He was meant to be home for Christmas but he’s unreliable and it’s not looking likely. He has a girlfriend now who we like so might have been nice. It’s hard when he tells the younger ones and then let’s them down a lot, and sees no issue with it.
I actually still find him hard work tbh. When he was younger he got so much stuff from every direction and appreciated nothing. He’s still a bit like that, and expects everyone to run around after him. He also still reverts to a child/teenager when home (I’m saying reverts because I hope he’s not like that anywhere else).

I agree, the best thing would be for all kids to open their phone on Xmas day. Then can even phone their mum on it!

Oh god we are having second Christmas on the weekend before actual Christmas as my dh ex doesn't share Christmas which is fine.

She's currently texting him kicking off saying he's a shit dad and go spend the festive season with his new family because he said sorry I don't have a spare £500 to lend you to pay for Christmas this year, (and I will totally admit we have set the bar and have have helped out every Christmas with finances for mum as she always says she won't have money for presents etc on top of what she usually gets) and when I say we I mean me and my dh separately because as a mum I get finances can be tight and I wanted to help and genuinely believed it was a one off but now realise it's a pattern.

Now my DSD (who as ASD) is asking what's the new family her mum was talking about like we are hiding a separate family under the stairs and is incredibly confused as she's taken it quite literally.

I feel like banging my head against a wall going how the fuck do I explain this without making mum sound bad. DSD sees us as one giant family so is genuinely fucking confused.

I need fucking wine may put my head in a pot of boiling oil later to spice things up.

Why why every Christmas is it like this ?!?

Christmas arrangements of Christmas day one year, Boxing day the next was the one thing DPs ex didn't argue or cause grief about.

She did do a few years of buying them large gifts and saying they could be kept at ours as too big for her house, never with the play station though, that was never allowed to leave her house, same with new clothes 🙄
Generally accepted that my dinner much nicer than their Mum's so I'll take that win 😀

Thankfully the DSC were always wonderful and now grown up and continue to be, I got lucky!