After being married a few years , I mentioned to my MIL that one day I’d love to host Thanksgiving. At the time, there was no way…no room or furniture to accommodate a holiday like that, but one day hopefully.! Her response? “I’m not ready for role reversal”. Geez.
Fast forward 15 years and I’m tired of driving 2 hours to her house with kids in tow everything Xmas. So the year things changed, her husband died and I decided I was staying home for the holiday and hosting Christmas Eve, (my family lived town). Invited her and her mom to stay as long as they wanted, we have plenty of room and she loves her grandkids.
She came. It was my first holiday with a formal dining room table and furniture and I had everything decorated so pretty, including Christmas dishes and stemware my aunts had been buying me for years . The first thing she says is “oh look, seems someone is trying to impress everyone”. My aunts and sister heard it and jumped to my defense with, “why we think it’s gorgeous”,etc.
So, that night she refuses to spend the night and leaves about 7. House was full as everyone says goodbye and she ignores me and doesn’t say anything, just waves.
So, I’m sitting on the sofa with my Dad and he’s watching the whole thing and we’re talking about it and I can’t believe she seemed so annoyed and rude when she left. He put his arm around me and said, “honey, she’s acting like that because you just knocked the crown right off her head”.
My mind was made up right then and there that whenever I had a DIL and they wanted to take over, my response would be happily “sounds lovely, what can I bring?”