Christmas "get if off your chest" thread.

balletshoes

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

my mum had invited OH and I over for Christmas dinner. I was very much looking forward to this, as mum and I went through a really rough patch afew years back and it's taken a lot of time and effort to rebuild our relationship over past 2 years or so.

all week leading up to Christmas I have been horribly, horribly ill and the one thought keeping me going was getting to spend Christmas day with my family, and have Christmas dinner at home again.

fast forward to late Christmas eve, and my mum and brother have a falling out. When we arrived 9am on Christmas morning, mum had already decided that she wasn't celebrating Christmas anymore this year. Christmas dinner was cancelled and she had already taken down 90% of her decorations.

To add insult to injury, she didn't even have the manners to offer us anything to eat at all in all the time we were there, knowing full well that as we'd planned to spend Christmas night and boxing day with other family groups we had run the fridge empty in readiness to do a shop today. further salt in the wound was her telling me that she'd cooked the turkey because she wanted to have a turkey sandwich at least. (Whilst I can see this is progress from a few years back where the whole lot would have gone in the bin and gone to waste, that's no real comfort at the moment).

We then went to to visit other relatives in the afternoon, having had nothing to eat since 7am, only to have them ask 'how did dinner with your mum go?' Not a happy conversation to have. OH, who is quite scared of my mum because he feels like everybody is constantly walking on egg shells around her, now understandably feels more resentment. She meanwhile is blind to the fact that she has shot herself in the foot, because I can't see us rushing to accept an invitation to spend Christmas or any other big event with her knowing that she could well leave us in the lurch.

oh thats awful pavlovs dog - its only one day, but it should have been a special one.

catch_me_if_you_can

Pollycat wrote: »

"Xmas crept up on her"?
Has she been in hibernation [or in Outer Mongolia for ] the last 3 months?

this was one of my repeated sentences to her. She's now gone back to her dad's. Liking the idea of dropping the first D when I refer to her on here

Thank you :T

Faerie

Having worked the last two Christmases I got this year off so we spent it at my mums, it was lovely bar one thing. I have 3 sisters and 1 brother and only one of them bothered with me. I spent so much time, effort and money on finding presents for them and their children and didn't even get a simple "Thank you" never mind a Christmas card!

I live in a different city to them and work awkward shifts and I go to visit my family once a month or so. My younger brother lives with my Dad so I managed to see him and exchange gifts on Christmas eve. My 3 sisters couldn't even manage a Christmas text! :mad: Weeks before travelling up I tried to contact all my siblings to meet up at some point so I could hand the presents out and see the kids. 2 sisters didn't reply to text, pick up their phone or reply to emails (snubbed or what?!) The other sister text me to say she'd pick the presents up from my mum's house, ie she didn't want to make the effort to meet up.

The annoying thing is I heard through another relative that the sisters and kids really enjoyed my gifts so why couldn't they just let me know that? My sisters won't get anything from me in future. When we were kids we always had to write thank you letters so I don't understand why they are like this now. My mum gets so upset about it.

I know my sisters are thoughtless around birthday and christmas for everyone not just me but as soon as I got in the car I ranted for the 2 hours home. I don't even feel like crying I'm so angry! A thank you text would have done

balletshoes

I had a lovely Christmas day with all my family, no-one fell out, everyone helped with dinner and the dishes/clearing away/setting up etc.

Yesterday was my grown-up nephew's birthday, so we were all together again yesterday evening. This time though, somehow the conversation got round to debating government policies, benefits, flu jabs, the whole shebang. If I didn't know any better, having heard my sis and her husband spouting on, I'd be convinced they were the Daily Mail's biggest fans and most avid readers. I left after about half an hour of this, as they were clearly completely correct and any other slight variation from their point of view was completely wrong and they didn't want to hear anyone else's voices anyway. "and thats whats wrong with this country" - they're only in their early 40s FGS!

we'll be seeing each other most days for the next week until I go back home, but hopefully with not much alcohol involved and no more Daily Mail devotions :rotfl:!

FloFlo

Kili wrote: »

Great thread, and just what I need......

I wanted a Kindle for Christmas, not a huge ask, but I know money is tight at the moment. Imagine my little face on Christmas morning when OH has bought me a kindle. I was over the moon. He tells me its a joint gift from him and our teenage children (who I believe have contributed £40 to this as that was the amount they spent on him).
I open a card from my Mum In Law and it's got £40 in! Great, I can buy a nice case to protect my pride and joy? Well no, because OH says he needs that money to pay towards the Kindle..... I'm a bit disheartened at this but I hand it over and work out that if the kids paid £40 and I just gave him £40 he paid £9.

Having spent 36 marvellous hours with my new toy happily reading I realise that there is a way you can put your own screen savers on and I mention this to OH. He has a look and says its complex. I tell him to leave it. He doesn't.

My beautiful new Kindle is now firmly bricked in a 'developer' screen which wont turn on or off. It can't go back because you aren't even supposed to access that menu apparently and OH can't fix it. I am gutted. Did he say sorry? Offer to replace it? Did he !!!!.

I have spent most of the night in floods of tears, he's not apologised and there is no way I can afford to replace it myself. I am gutted beyond belief.

Have you contacted amazon, they should help even if you didn't buy it from them. I am in hospital visiting my mum, she is sleeping and my kindle has run out of charge I forgot to charge it with all thats been happening with my mum - my kindle is keeping me sane at the moment.

So email or phone amazon they have always been excellent with me.

heretolearn_2

Can I have three year's worth of rants? OH is lovley but just doesn't 'get' Christmas in the same way as us - to him it's a quiet religious holiday I suppose.

One year OH did not get me any presents. I gave him his, he opened them, said thanks, didn't say a word about no presents for me. Until he found me sobbing in the kitchen a couple of hours later and couldn't understand why I was upset as he 'didn't realise presents were important' and he'd been planning on getting me something in the sales.

Last year ran around like a mad thing doing Xmas for me, OH, my son, and his two sons. No one lifted a finger to do anything apart from my own lovely son who was raised right and always jumps right in to help no matter where he is! OH spent most of Christmas dinner on his mobile. OH's comment 'you really love Christmas, don't you' to which I thought 'not any more I don't'.

Seriously could not be bothered much this year as just me and OH and I thought 'what's the point'. But pulled myself together and thought, ok, will do my best. 11pm Christmas Eve OH informs me he is going to church Xmas day. Fine, you might think, except he likes to go to a church a long way away (and hasn't been for a few years). Told me he'd be back at 1pm, but could we have dinner around 3? OK. so we get up, do presents (he has learned that this is something we do) he leaves at 10am. That's ok, I get dinner going, make some calls, read my new Christmas book, don't mind a quiet few hours. 2pm I start phoning him. No answer. He turns up at 2.45pm 'hello' , he says then 'is dinner ready?'. Cue meltdown from me on being left home alone like Billy No-mates all day cooking his sodding dinner. Dinner served, can't be bothered doing the starter, halfway through dinner I start crying and go hide in the loo, he just eats dinner then goes and watches TV. Pretty much blank each other all day, watch Downton Abbey, go to bed. We sort of made up yesterday, he made an effort to be nice to me, mind he still hasn't done so much as made a cup of tea yet all break... It's all the more annoying as he did exactly the same thing last time he decided to go to this church and I said then, 'don't do this again, if you want to go, that's fine, but you need to tell me in advance so I can sort something out for myself for Christmas day as it's not ok to just leave me here on my own for so long' but he forgot all about that. It's just so thoughtless...

*sigh* I've said next year I'm going to my family for Christmas.

Pollycat

Faerie wrote: »

The annoying thing is I heard through another relative that the sisters and kids really enjoyed my gifts so why couldn't they just let me know that? My sisters won't get anything from me in future. When we were kids we always had to write thank you letters so I don't understand why they are like this now. My mum gets so upset about it.

For everybody who's spent ages thinking and shopping for thoughtful gifts, spent ages queuing in the supermarket for Christmas food & drink, hours in the kitchen preparing food that's taken for granted and haven't felt appreciated for what you've done - take a leaf out of faerie's book next year.

gunsandbanjos

scarlet55 wrote: »

You have enough to cope with without waiting on other people hand and foot. You have to put you're foot down and tell people that unless they are willing to help then you won't be hosting any more dinners/buffet's for them..They shouldn't need telling anyway, whenever I go anywhere for dinner I am always the first person in the kitchen washing up, It's just good manner's if someone has had the decency to feed you..Take care Barneysmom.:)

Totally agree, i always help out. We went to my Mum and Dads for dinner, altogether there was 11 of us. I gave my mum loads of help and most people helped clear the table between courses and at the end of the meal.
My dad asked my brother to dry the dishes - his reply 'but i'm a guest':mad: Yup, me too and i helped (neither of us live at home). He never did get off his bum and help with the dishes

Just want to wish you and your husband well Barneysmom x

heretolearn_2

I hate the way that it's usually the women who help and the men sit on their lazy !!!!!!. I went through a phase of thinking 'well, if they get to just sit around, so will I' but now I'll help but make some comment about it. That's probably why my son always leaps into action, lol!

lady1964

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Why didn't you ask for help? I am v surprised that your own DDs sat by and let you get on with it, despite your delicate condition. Could it be that by soldiering on, you gave the impression that you were actually fine?

I didn't ask for help because I'm an idiot I just prefer people to offer, I would always offer, I could never sit back and let someone else do everything. I think you're right, I probably did give the impression that I was ok and that I was alright doing everything.

I've learnt to say 'right, I need xx doing please and can you do xx?' that way I don't silently seethe and they get to feel they've done something good