Christmas - the dreaded C word!

Try not to feel resentful, diamondsgirl, just focus on the huge positive that your children obviously love you and want you to be happy at Christmas. And I hope you have a lovely time.

It's really up to you, but have you considered doing your own thing for Christmas this year?

Your DDs clearly are trying to accommodate everyone. If they've seen you for the past several years for Christmas it's not unreasonable for them to want to see the other side.

I also don't think it's unreasonable for her to send a message to her siblings saying, hey, we can't accommodate Mum this year, can someone else help to make sure she won't be alone?

Christmastime can be a minefield for some families. I think this is more of a thoughtful gesture of trying to ensure that you won't be alone.

What do you actually want to do - if it's to go to your son's that's probably the best option especially if you're going out with your granddaughters on Boxing Day. It's difficult trying to please everyone - I'm sure the text wasn't meant to mean you're a spare parent to be foisted off on one of them - more like your daughter was worried you'd be on your own. If however you'd rather be on your own plan it out and let them know it's what you want to do for a change.

I have a suspicion that similar emails are circulating as to my C>>>>>>>>>>>>>> dinner , personally I would rather be on my own and eat rubbish as I usually do , but on the horns of a dilemma as my sisters will be on their own and usually go where I go , as it will be the first without Jim they are all a bit sad

Last Christmas I was on my own. Youngest DD who lived nearest (45 minutes away) said I was welcome for the day, but I don’t have a car and public transport is a non starter on Christmas Day. The other two live 100 miles away but I could have stayed with them and was asked, but I would have had problems with travelling so far due to my deteriorating health so I ended up on my own.
Friends invited me to their house but to be honest I had never had a Christmas on my own before and really enjoyed it! I bought lovely nibbles from M&S and Waitrose, a mini bottle of champagne and watched stuff on Netflix curled up by the fire with the cat

I think your AC are trying hard to show their love and care for you. Your DD knows you , like her, don't like her FiL and she is seeking a solution. She is doing the normal thing and checking what her brother or sister are doing. Try not to overthink this. They want you to be happy and with family. How lovely.

Your DD and her DH want to spend Christmas with their MIL for the FISRT TIME and you've been invited, so why fish for reasons for uncessary resentment and make this all about you when she's clearly looking out for you by trying to make sure that you are not alone during the holidays? Are you sure that you're not more resentful over the fact that they have for the first time chosen to spend Christmas without you? Sounds very selfish to the paternal MIL in my opinion.

I too love spending Christmas alone.

LiveLaughLaove - nothing could be further from the truth. I really get on with DD's MiL and her new husband, it is DD's FiL I cannot really stand, and as I said with good reason. I know it is going to be tetchy with FiL and new husband anyway and of course DD's MiL should go for the first time, I think that is lovely.
It is just the text which upset me, and I suppose I have been overthinking it - since DH died I hate feeling like a spare arm, and I believe all the messages just made me feel even more of a problem to be solved than the kindness of considering me.

diamondsgirl don't see how anyone could assume from your OP that you resent your D spending Christmas for the first time with her m.i.l. Still that's LLL for you.

What ever you decide to do, I hope you have an enjoyable time.

Like Smileless I also didn't get the impression that you resent her spending Xmas with your DD.
It is difficult when you find a particular personality difficult in a family. Its a minefield your DD has to negotiate as best she can especially if things get tetchy anyway with FIL and his son! As you say, lovely for your MIL to spend time with them at Xmas, presumably she is fairly used to the tetchiness.
I think your daughter meant kindly by her text to her
brother and if he is unhappy with that it is for him to speak to his sister about it. If you want to go to your son's then just go, don't overthink it and enjoy the time with them. Hope that you have a lovely time!

I wouldn't over think it, accept your son's invitation, Christmas Day and Boxing Day sound as if they are covered, Could you offer to take them all to a Panto or some kind of entertainment another day? Take a good book, so when you have offered to help and been turned down you have something to do. Play with your GC and remember to get up so the bed can be put away. Just enjoy a change of scene and a slightly different Christmas.

The texting just means your children are trying to find ways to make sure you are not alone at Christmas, so I think you are over worrying about this.
Just have a think about what you want to do.

I think you are being unreasonable to resent children discussing among themselves how to include you in what are clearly fairly complex Christmas arrangements.

I conferred with my sister in the similar circumstances when DF was on his own and if my DC do it sometime in the future I will be completely relaxed about it.

In every case it is a question of loving children wanting their parent to have an enjoyable Christmas with minimal hassle. What is their to get upset about?

Maybe the DD who is working on Christmas eve could do with your help. She's the one I'd go to.
When her shift ends she will be grateful if youve done preparation for the big day.

Smileless2012

Errr.......there's a big difference between an inquiry and an assumptive question.

"Are you sure that you're not more resentful over the fact that they have for the first time chosen to spend Christmas without you?" - Question based on an inquiry

vs.

"Why are you resentful over the fact that they have for the first time chosen to spend Christmas without you?" - Question based on an assumption

Big difference, plus OP didn't seem bothered by it anyway.

diamondsgirl - hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

I think your daughter meant well when she texted her siblings to ask for their help. I doubt she meant to make you feel like someone who has to be accommodated. I don't quite understand why your son resented it but perhaps I have missed something.

How about doing your own thing? Plenty of firms offer singles holidays at Christmas. Obviously, it depends on your financial position but it might solve the dilemma.

I hope the matter gets sorted out and you enjoy yourself, whatever you decide to do.

We have coordinated ours well and now have all or none! This year it is none - well DS1 is on his own but is going to DD1 so we are going away to one of our favourite hotels! In the 48 years that we have been married dh and I have never been on our own so we are making the most of it!!

Really LLL a thoughtless question whether it is an inquiry or based on an assumption is none the less thoughtless, especially when there was absolutely nothing in the OP to allude to either.

"Sounds very selfish to the paternal MIL in my opinion" is not an inquiry or an assumptive question. It is your opinion and there was nothing in the OP to suggest this is the case.

The OP's response on 24.10 at 11.25 would suggest that she was "bothered". Still, being familiar with your posts, I'm not surprised at the attitude that's been expressed here.

Smileless2012

"Still, being familiar with your posts, I'm not surprised at the attitude that's been expressed here."

My last post (still based on the truth to date) must have really rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, to the extent that I'm still being stalked for it SEVERAL months later. . Good thing is that you're completely entitled to your opinion (as I and everyone else in this world is). So let's simply agree to disagree and continue (key word here) to ignore each other on this platform.

I'm not at all surprised by your response to my post - (whilst conveniently twisting your original response). You ORIGINALLY said that I'd made an assumption by questioning OPs resentment to her daughter? How has this been conveniently twisted to a whole other part of my post that addressed selfishness and the paternal MIL? if you don't think its selfish for one pare to spend EVERY SINGLE CHRISTMAS with a huand and wife who have their own NUCLEAR FAMILY as well as other extended family - then that's your opinion and your obviously entitled to it. However, being entitled to such an opinion doesn't necessarily make another posters comment " thoughtless," whilst making your disdain on it more thoughtful? There're are millions of people in this world that would in fact consider it very selfish for one parent to expect their AC and their nuclear family, to spend EVERY CHRISTMAS DAY of every single year with them. But if this works for you then you're the small exception.

I'm still not sure what exactly it is you want to know that the OP doesn't care to know and hasn't expressed any concern. OPs very own response to my post ," LiveLaughLaove - nothing could be further from the truth."

.....So when you say "The OP's response on 24.10 at 11.25 would suggest that she was "bothered". Now that would be a perfect example of you having a misplaced assumption on how OP feels when she made it explicitly clear about how she felt. But you still felt the need to make more assumptions based on your personal opinions that had nothing to do with OPs post when stating , "Still that's LLL for you."

Just stop fishing for problems that aren't even there for your still upset over a post from several months ago. You can't blame one for making "thoughtless comments," when you're intact being very thoughtless by taking away from the OPs post, and trying to make this all about how you CHOSE to perceive another posters comment, and ASSUMED it to be something that it really wasn't. Solely because the poster and not conten in the post in itself bothers you.

So could ALL of you from that old post simply move on and ignore me? Or maybe start your own post where you can tear out my comments to the bone? So we don't deviate from the OP? I simply don't understand why one would adamantly try to come onto another post and make everything about them, and how they interpret, decipher and feel about a posts that isnt even out them and more especially after the OP has agreed with it and made further elaborated her feelings on it. Or are we now justified to tell other people (including the OP) exactly how they feel?

Smileless2012 I already wished the OP a wonderful holiday season. I'm 1000% sure that moving forward you too can work just a little harder towards ignoring me. Dont see why this needs to be reiteratred as this is a solution we'd come to a perfect conclusion about in that post that's led to this absurd and obsessive stalkerish behavior. I'm therefore quite surprised that you still find it very hard to simply ignore me as I've done you for the past several months.

Now kindly find some happiness somewhere and still being so upset with a total stranger on social media. One that I guarantee you'll never meet. Whoever thought that a post about apologies would create so many upset bloggers. If I still bother you, feel free to inbox me and express any negativity that you may have, but for now let's ignore each other and stop taking away from this posters concern with childish drama. Get over it already!

diamondsgirl

Hopefully all of this unnecessary negativity (implied or imagined) doesn't take away from your original post.

I still think that your DD was simply coming from a loving space, looking out for you and trying to make sure that you were not alone during the holidays.

Do enjoy yourself in whatever you decide to do!

just a thought but if a post appears to have "really rubbed a lot of people the wrong way" perhaps that's because the post was inappropriate.

"Familiar with posts" is again back to style of writing and comment ...it does not imply "stalkerish behaviour" in my view. The point is LLL that you seem to regularly write comments that appear critical and unpleasant because of how they are written, even when your advice might be helpful! You then appear regularly to imply that anyone who comments on this is "stalking" you and derailing posts! I truly wish that you could see why this keeps happening.
I'm not joining in another unnecessary bun fight nor am I "stalking" you or anyone else, I just happened to read the OP .
Yes do lets move on as you suggest preferably without the unpleasantness that seems to keep arising.

You two women clearly have really deep seated issues. It must take an extremely miserable and unhappy person to obsessively follow someone this way, whilst being so upset at them for months in a row . You're so MAD at me to the extent that ignoring me becomes very impossible, so feel free to indulge yourselves in misery for I won't stop posting, simply for you're committed to finding misery in every way possible . I still stand by my words on that last post BTW. And nothing you do or say will make me apologize for my true and very honest opinion - nor make me take those words back. Maybe cut offs wouldn't be so predominant if peoole didn't try and impose their feelings and ideas on others whilst trying to manipulate and twist their words into a negative narrative. Sorry to dissappoint but I'll still be here........even after some of you tried to get rid of me last time.