Not included in DS/DIL & GS Christmas bubble

Exactly nipsmum. I'm working Christmas Day. And not devastated about it. It's one day.

I’m just wondering about your very elderly mum in all this. Shouldn’t she be your priority as you have no way of knowing how many more years she will still be around for Christmas?

You did mention possibly having her for Christmas day but does she know that?

You want to see your son and grandchild.
Your mum may well be having very anxious feelings about whether she will see her daughter.

Can someone on gransnet tell me why so many people feels so entitled nowadays. For most of us nobody owes us anything yet we get so obsessed by being left out of peoples arrangements. Christmas day is just one day, it is 24 hours that will come and go like yesterday and tomorrow. I was reminded today that when my generation were children in Scotland, Christmas was hardly noticed as most of our dads worked it like any other. I've never understood the hysteria about Christmas. It causes more anger and tears than is necessary about 1 day. Please please get it into proportion. It will be done in 24 hours.

To be honest, I do not think that you should have visited them when you had a cold and knowing that surgery was scheduled.

In your son and DIL's place, I would have been furious and find it very difficult to trust you in the present circumstances.

They should have been honest about their anger at the time.

You are only upsetting yourself by continuing to discuss Christmas with them. If you continue to do so, you risk them refusing to spend Christmas with you next year, as well as this year.

Give in gracefully and try not to resent their decision.

Wow. Your whole first post is exactly about you trying to guilt trip everyone!!

Accept that you will be with just your dh at christmas and stop trying to get everyone to do what you want before you damage your family relationships permanently.

Don't turn this into a battle with your family.
I'm sure if you ask friends you will find another couple that you can team up with.
You should be grateful that you have a husband to spend your day with and leave your son to make his own decisions. We have 4 children all with spouses all with children under 8. They are buddying up together in 2s so the cousins can enjoy being with each other. Thay each have a couples friend or sister/brother in law with children that they have agreed to buddy up with to make the 3 households. None of this includes us or in-laws. I think it has been planned brilliantly and I love the idea that all my grandchildren will have each other. I have aslo said they are not to spend the day zooming or calling parents that they have left out as this is unfair on our grandchildren.
We have our eye on the vaccine and getting there in one piece .

If it means so much to you to see them, why haven't you knocked the Saturday shopping on the head?

"Oh not again" my thoughts too Lucca, I always cringe when I see that.

I prefer 'a son is a son for the whole of his life, whether or not he has a wife' which is how it should be. Presumably mum's of daughters don't expect to lose them when they marry, so why should the mum's of sons?

If they are totally isolating and you're not, that is probably why they don't think it's safe to meet up. Totally your choice about how much Covid risk you expose yourself to, but you don't get to make that choice for others by exposing them through contact with you. Not being honest about the cold last year has clearly been remembered. They're not prepared to risk it again.

In relation to the DiL issue, it may be that she will spend more time with her family. The relationship you have with your son will be what decides how much you see him. It sounds as if you damaged that relationship last year, when you exposed a health compromised newborn and the family to your cold.

I do think you need to be very careful. There are so many estrangement threads on here. If you push too much, you might push them away.

I would back off completely. If you hear from them, gush about the plans you've put in place, make obvious you're not going to make a fuss. Possibly a comment about seeing them when everything calms down.

Speaking as the mom of a preterm baby who spent 2 weeks in NICU, if you had turned up to cough and sneeze all over my baby, that would have been the last time you came near enough to him to endanger him.

Never mind not wanting to become the MIL from hell. Too late.

If you want to salvage any relationship, write an humble apology letter now.

Next step: cut off.

Lucca

ExD

(can I lighten things up a little?)
How does the old poem go?

"your son is your son 'till he gets him a wife,
Your daughter's your daughter the rest of her life"

....... something like that - an old ode that makes sweeping generalizations but contains a pinch of truth somewhere.
Time to paint on the smile and pull up the big girl's knickers?

Oh not again.

Oh not that again.
My sons are still very much my sons just with the added bonus of a lovely wife each.

I seriously doubted OP was a genuine post with all that whingeing and getting husband to have a word etc
Also babies are not possessions that you have absolute rights to see as often as you like.

I’d enjoy your quiet Christmas, put your feet up and have contact with your family via phone, video etc. At least you won’t be on your own like a lot of elderly people are every year

‘ We don't normally celebrate Easter at all but DIL family do so would be an opportunity to invite them for a 'big day'.

... & the answer to that is No.

Your DiL’s celebrate Easter for a reason & probably in a particular way that has meaning for them. An invitation to a ‘A Big Day ’ at yours will not land well in this instance.

You may have to be at your most gracious & accommodating for a while to serve your term for ‘Snifflesgate’ last year - you did get that wrong & seem to have been tone deaf about their legitimate concerns.

Step back for a while to reflect.

I think if you do not apologise for making such a fuss you may alienate them for a long time.

Your daughter in laws family are obviously more important to her and she is more important to your son than you are.

I am sorry you are in this situation,please try not to make it worse.

I feel most sorry for poor old Mum. Sounds to me like everyone is leaving her on her own on Christmas Day. Have you asked her what she would like to do?

ExD

(can I lighten things up a little?)
How does the old poem go?

"your son is your son 'till he gets him a wife,
Your daughter's your daughter the rest of her life"

....... something like that - an old ode that makes sweeping generalizations but contains a pinch of truth somewhere.
Time to paint on the smile and pull up the big girl's knickers?

Oh not again.

GrauntyHelen
Nail on the head ? They just don't want her there. End of!!

Oh dear I think you sound like hard work and that's probably the problem rather than Covid As my own Gran used to say "it's best to wait until you are invited"

Further to my previous post, this thread has got me thinking about Christmas per se, under normal circumstances and varying attitudes towards it.

Christmas it can be said, is almost like the big white wedding fantasy lite! It's one day, some over invest in it, it doesn't always reflect real life. Yes it can be magical when children are of that optimum age which falls briefly between being too young to understand and the knowledge that Father Christmas doesn't exist. It's a small window. A baby aged one will be oblivious to it all that's for sure, and feeling desperate to spend the first or even second Christmas with an unknowing infant, is buying into the Disneyesque fantasy peddled by masses of schmaltzy consumer ads.

Yes we had nice Christmases with our children when they were young, at our house. Since the grandchildren's arrival, more often than not they've been with the other side, an occasional actual day with us, that's fine. I would suggest that sometimes the days when they have been present have been the most exhausting, young children particularly are at their sparkly best when confronted with "the pile" as each present is opened, and often cast aside that elation diminishes, until the last present is revealed and what surrounds them and us is the debris. Frustration often sets in when things can't be constructed to their liking, or some integral piece is missing Often we the adults are stuck with umpteen instruction leaflets to try and make sense of. When my children were young I always read them a book by the wonderful Shirley Hughes around the Christmas period, called "Tom and Lucy's Christmas" she captured that perfectly, Lucy and Tom getting up at the crack of dawn, opening all the presents, eating too much becoming overwrought, tired and frazzled, all ending in tears and tantrums!

Whilst I'm going to miss some close family adult get togethers, mass, carol services, mince pies and wine have been very much part of our Christmas Eve. There's no point in being disappointed in what cannot be this year, better in my opinion to look forward to hopefully better times when getting together wont be a potentially life threatening event. In the meantime, I'm quite happy for it to be the two of us, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, Bucks Fizz, watching what we like, not trying to turn cartwheels making sure everyone else is being suitably catered for and then relaxing over possibly dinner later, and if the weather is nice an afternoon walk.

I consider myself lucky having read the sad post up thread, not the OP, but the one where the mother has become estranged from her only son. There are many people alone and unhappy at Christmas, quite honestly, the rampant cranking up of what is after all a religious festival gone rogue, really hits those people hard. All the bickering about who sees who is just such a load of nonsense imo.

It really wouldn't bother, a lovely peaceful day doing what we like x

I feel for you grannylancs. We never see our GC on Christmas Day. They usually arrive on the 26 th and stay for a couple of days. (This year that won’t be happening.) DIL has already said that they are going to MIL for Christmas. No discussion with anyone. MIl has seen the children at least six time this year already but we haven’t seen them since last Christmas.
We’ll be on own again. Not bothering to put a tree up, not worth it.

Christmas is just one day and a lot of people are on their own, with no husband, wife, family, etc....so at least you are fortunate you have all of those to be grateful for and you will see them again .....so count your blessings and enjoy your day..you can at least speak to them on the phone ...but please don't give them a guilt trip or you may never see them again. Be happy and thankful for what you have.

Pestyone although I have had no real problems with my children, I too have will be alone unless my DD persuades his family to eat in the garden. We are living in strange times, I used to have 14 round the table. I haven’t seen, in the flesh, one front line Manchester working daughter since last February and the other two plus grandchildren since the summer because of French lockdown.
I don’t understand how people say the are alone when they have someone to see and talk to even if the relationship isn’t milk and honey. I honesty do not see are speak to anyone in the flesh from dawn to dusk.

Grannylancs You should have thought before visiting your grandson, it will very difficult for you DS to forget that his Son’s life was put in danger my his mother, you will have to live with that. The best thing would be to drop any notion of visiting them in the near future. Zoom time everyone with a smile, not mentioning how you would have liked Christmas, and think about sunny days next spring with a big Easter reunion.

they don't trust us to be honest about when we were ill

This is the point.

It doesn't matter whether anyone caught your cold or not - you put their very new baby at risk because of your selfishness.

They don't trust you not to do that again and they don't like you very much because you did that.

Your son's choice is to avoid you as much as possible, especially during a pandemic.
He is right to do so and you could push him into cutting contact with you altogether if you continue to be so selfish.

Last year your baby GS was awaiting surgery and you visited when you knew you were starting with a cold? And you go retail, ie unnecessary, shopping every week and for coffee with friends? They have a baby DS who is now post operative and they prefer to spend Christmas with the part of the family that are keeping away from shops apart from what is absolutely necessary.?And you're wondering why you're not the chosen party for Christmas celebrations?
Give your head a wobble and resign yourself to making Christmas as enjoyable as possible for you and your DH and DM.