Bah humbug!

notanewuser

margaretclare wrote: »

Why is it so crucial that DH's parents see the grandkids on Christmas Day?

A suggestion: Tell them that you can't do it because you're going to church. Isn't that what it's all about rather than driving miles here and there, for no good purpose?

I agree completely with your first point, but as the OP has mentioned nothing whatsoever about church (and it takes absolutely no part in many Xmas festivities) that's pretty presumptuous!!!

Edwardia

IIRC it was Christmas before last, that my mother turned down invite from my bro, bc she doesn't like his eldest daughter, telling him that she was coming to me, then called me and told me. :eek:

Three days before Christmas, after we'd gotten veggie food for her, movies she would like etc she called. My uncle (her bro) had called to tell her that he would be dropping into my bro en route btwn stepkids and home in France. My mother cancelled coming to us.

I was upset, she couldn't see she was being unreasonable. Her excuse that bro lives in France is invalid bc he's over here every 2 months and stays with her. It was only when I turned the tables and said supposing you had gone to a special effort.. that she realised oops I mesed up.

OP you have to realise that families do stuff like that bc they think they can get away with it. Your MIL turned down your DH's sibling bc doesn't like DIL. She figured default fallback position was that she'd come to you.

Your DH is wimping out by saying that he wants a quiet Christmas with you, then not standing up to his mother. For goodness sake don't you tell her she can't come, make him do it or else you'll get it in the neck and be the Baddie.

If you can afford it I'd suggest going away !

margaretclare

notanewuser wrote: »

I agree completely with your first point, but as the OP has mentioned nothing whatsoever about church (and it takes absolutely no part in many Xmas festivities) that's pretty presumptuous!!!

Just an alternative suggestion.

gettingtheresometime

tgroom57 wrote: »

I feel it is all about managing 'customer expectations'. Family expectations, maybe. Obligations are there only to fill a vacuum. I would encourage you to visualise how you'd like to spend the Christmas season - because it is not just one day- and then 'make it so'.

I went on a course once and the guy who was running it said basically this - and I ended up having an argument with him over it.

As said before it's more convenient for OH to go away Christmas ( and I'd love to go away for Christmas as well as I don't do Christmas) but how do we 'make it so' when I have to consider my colleagues' wishes and the thought of my mum being on her own on Christmas Day would ruin any break I was on?

(and no my mum wouldn't guilt trip me about going away)

Cottage_Economy

Hubby and I are having our first Christmas Day alone in 10 years and we are so excited!

MIL is going away with BIL, and we're seeing my parents on Boxing Day and driving them to see my sister and her family down South. Which means we've sneaked the day for ourselves. Hurrah!

No running around to try and ready for action by 11:30am.

No cooking massive dinners for tons of people. Every Christmas Day and Boxing Day I cook, whether in my home or someone else's.

No invites for lunch to find the host/hostess too drunk by 12pm to stand let alone cook because 'Cottage is a better cook anyway'.

No Hubby always being a chauffeur to the elderlies and drunkards and never having a drink (he won't touch a drop if he's getting behind the wheel).

No shouting and ranting across the turkey from a drunk father about incest and !!!!!philia being taken too seriously by society and all the reasons it shouldn't (yes, that joy last year earned him being taken home and a 'time out' over the rest of Christmas. Another Christmas dinner successfully ruined by him to add to the many).

No missing the Queen's speech. Every year for 10 years I have wanted to watch it and been overruled in favour of some kid's film.

Just us. In the warm. With the cats. In front of the fire. Maybe a walk in the morning before breakfast, a bit of carol singing in the local church. Have always had to go to midnight mass as there was never enough time in the morning.

Bliss.

Pollycat

Cottage Economy
I think your planned Christmas Day is the one envisaged by the OP - before her plans were changed by other people. :santa2:

Lily-Rose_3

Cottage_Economy wrote: »

Hubby and I are having our first Christmas Day alone in 10 years and we are so excited!

MIL is going away with BIL, and we're seeing my parents on Boxing Day and driving them to see my sister and her family down South. Which means we've sneaked the day for ourselves. Hurrah!

No running around to try and ready for action by 11:30am.

No cooking massive dinners for tons of people. Every Christmas Day and Boxing Day I cook, whether in my home or someone else's.

No invites for lunch to find the host/hostess too drunk by 12pm to stand let alone cook because 'Cottage is a better cook anyway'.

No Hubby always being a chauffeur to the elderlies and drunkards and never having a drink (he won't touch a drop if he's getting behind the wheel).

No shouting and ranting across the turkey from a drunk father about incest and !!!!!philia being taken too seriously by society and all the reasons it shouldn't (yes, that joy last year earned him being taken home and a 'time out' over the rest of Christmas. Another Christmas dinner successfully ruined by him to add to the many).

No missing the Queen's speech. Every year for 10 years I have wanted to watch it and been overruled in favour of some kid's film.

Just us. In the warm. With the cats. In front of the fire. Maybe a walk in the morning before breakfast, a bit of carol singing in the local church. Have always had to go to midnight mass as there was never enough time in the morning.

Bliss.

Sounds fab.

We are having a similar Christmas, but our 20 y.o. daughter will be home from uni and will also be with us for Christmas!

We will visit various extended family (aunts & cousins etc,) during the period from 19-22 December to drop off pressies and cards, and will skype our two brothers and their families who live overseas around 23 December. (Sadly, our parents passed a few years ago, so we will go visit their graves just before Christmas too, as they are not with us.)

Around 21st December, we will go for Christmas drinks and nibbles put on at the local pub with a bunch of about 15 of our friends and neighbours who live closeby, while our daughter goes out clubbing with her pals and boyfriend.

22nd December is the Carol service at the Church, and then on Christmas Eve we will go for a Christmas meal at a restaurant that we booked a month ago, (just me hubby and daughter.) Christmas Eve night, we will go to midnight mass at the local Church.

Christmas day, we will lie in til ten-ish, then we'll get up and watch a bit of tv. As we are having our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve at a restaurant; I will pop some buffet munchies in the oven, and get some nuts and savouries out, (should take less half an hour to do everything!)

Then late morning we'll go for a walk in the woodland for an hour, then come back and have an early afternoon buffet with port or sherry or wine, while we open all our pressies, and then we'll sit and watch the Queen's speech, and then a Christmas movie, and then at teatime, we'll have a whole trifle between us with cappuccino.

Boxing day, we will just chill, watch telly, go for another walk, watch some films. And then on the 27th our daughter is off to her boyfriends for a couple of days. That day, we will hit the sales!

Another few days relaxing after that: we will maybe have another drink or two at the pub, and then on the 29th our daughter will come back home from her boyfriend's and bring him with her to stay til 1st Jan. And we will all go to the New Year's Eve party at the pub with a disco and a free buffet, where we'll stay til 3am like we did last year.

The perfect Christmas for us. I know of so many people who are flat out doing things that they don't want to do. It's just stressful and miserable. Why can't people just do what they want? Why do they have to feel obliged to do what others want?

Mind you, I don't suppose it helps when your partner wants to do stuff YOU don't want to do.

margaretclare

I think the last 2 descriptions of Christmas are ideal, Cottage Economy and Lily-Rose. They sound just wonderful.

Christmas will never mean much to me since all the people who once made it special are no longer with us. What I don't like about it nowadays is the way we get it rammed down our necks for weeks beforehand. The 'ideal Christmas' - all those people round a groaning board as in Lidl's advert. The ideal. People and food. And for weeks and weeks.

I can't imagine anything worse than having to charge up and down the country in cars just to make sure of fitting in with the requirements and presuppositions of other people.

We shan't be going anywhere very much, except to a wedding the week before Christmas and a special weekend away for New Year. We just take it very quietly, do what we want to do. And yes, that does include church. If Christmas isn't about Christ then I don't know what it is all about.

notanewuser

margaretclare wrote: »

I can't imagine anything worse than having to charge up and down the country in cars just to make sure of fitting in with the requirements and presuppositions of other people.

We shan't be going anywhere very much, except to a wedding the week before Christmas and a special weekend away for New Year. We just take it very quietly, do what we want to do. And yes, that does include church. If Christmas isn't about Christ then I don't know what it is all about.

For us "xmas" is shorthand for our winter family gathering. Hence it very rarely happens on December 25th and we don't get stressed about the things most others get stressed about. Hence no churchy stuff as it isn't what we're celebrating.

We do usually do a visit up north during December to visit DH's family but we won't be this year. When we do mum will cook or we'll go out for a meal together (16 of us) but we don't do presents or drawn out family stuff. It's nice and far better than the alternative (which they do on 25th December anyway).

Morglin

margaretclare wrote: »

I think the last 2 descriptions of Christmas are ideal, Cottage Economy and Lily-Rose. They sound just wonderful.

Christmas will never mean much to me since all the people who once made it special are no longer with us. What I don't like about it nowadays is the way we get it rammed down our necks for weeks beforehand. The 'ideal Christmas' - all those people round a groaning board as in Lidl's advert. The ideal. People and food. And for weeks and weeks.

I can't imagine anything worse than having to charge up and down the country in cars just to make sure of fitting in with the requirements and presuppositions of other people.

We shan't be going anywhere very much, except to a wedding the week before Christmas and a special weekend away for New Year. We just take it very quietly, do what we want to do. And yes, that does include church. If Christmas isn't about Christ then I don't know what it is all about.

Christmas should be about whatever you want it to be about - for some it's the religious aspect, and for others, like my family, other than giving money to the Sally Army, playing their tunes for charity, religion doesn't come into it.

But, it's good if people, religious or not, try and embrace the original idea of goodwill, a lot of patience, snd peace throught the family (if not the land lol):beer:

Ironically, I have a friend who is deeply religious, she and the family used to like to go to Bethlehem at Xmas, as they felt that was where it all began.....they cannot go this year, though, because too many people are trying to kill one another over there - in the name of religion......it's a funny funny old world. :wall:


Lin