Changes are different and can be tough to adjust to. Wishing the best to everyone who is making adjustments as they navigate these emotion-charged times.
I’d be hurt hearing my OS say that he’d always spend future holidays elsewhere and never with us. It would take some time to figure out how to respond without getting very emotional. Those kind of conversations are not as easy as some posters seem to think.
Our DiL’s parents retired and are moving very close to S1 & DiL. DiL dislikes our state and has rarely agreed to a visit, but she’s happy to go on vacation with us (we pay 100%) and she asks us come to their city (we take them out to eat daily since they don’t provide any hospitality.) DiL told me that since her extended family would probably want to stay at their house during any holidays (her parents’ new home is too small for guests), that we’ll have to stay at a hotel when we come. S1 is very conflict- averse, like his dad, and goes along with DiL even though that has cost him several friendships.
@Silpat, wow, I’m sorry. That sounds hurtful as well.
Thanks to all who understood how shocking ds’s announcement was. It’s amazing how many of you could just shrug it off and say “oh well, things change”. I am too sentimental. Of course I’ve always known things would be different and it started last year when yds was not with us Christmas. But to be told by ods he’ll never be here again for Christmas…or to rephrase it, that he will be spending every Christmas from now on in MN… yes that threw me for a loop! It is what it is. We’ll get together when we can.
The opinions (and the occasional empathy) on this thread are really surprising (and some of them are very endearing) to me. I cannot fathom at all pressuring or expecting adult children to spend a certain holiday with me after a certain point in their lives. I can also see how awful it would be to be the young adult who never gets to see their own family. Yikes. VaB, I totally understand your sadness. xoxo.
Like a couple of posters above, both H and I are physicians. We almost never got more than Christmas Day OR Christmas Eve off, and almost always worked every 12/23 and 12/26 forever unless we both asked for a week off then, which was tough because that week is a very desirable vacation week. So by default we made our own little tradition in our house, in our town. All parents were invited, also, sibs and their families. Some years we had a houseful, some years it was just us. I liked it retrospectively bc it allowed us to make our own little traditions. Both of our families (parents, sibs, etc) were flexible, sympathetic and understanding, and we also tried to be flexible, sympathetic and understanding if people couldn’t come to our house or we couldn’t go to other family members’ houses.
That just seems like what we should aspire to— trying to be together, trying to be loving to our kids but understanding their new lives as adults, trying to be loving about their SO’s needs and wants wrt to their families. Ultimatums, and secret hurt feelings seem so sad.
And I’m sorry, but traveling or expecting people to travel on Christmas Day to fulfill an attendance requirement? lol NO.
I was the one who carried them for 9 months and stayed up with them when they were puking their guts out, so I think I kind of trump over their friends, employers and even their BFs’ families.>>
But the other mother could say the same thing, couldn’t she?
I don’t think we’re shrugging it off. That implies it doesn’t matter to us. But it does. It’s just that we realize we’re no longer the one source of control. No longer, as someone once said, the sun their planets revolve around.
And we’d rather make good peace, find a way to make things work. That doesn’t mean doormat. If you son phrased it in some unthinking way, in my family, I’d have a nice little conversation about the wording, the finality, and does my girl realize the impact of such a statement. I still care about their sensitivity.
Some of us saw the short end of control, where we were the ones disappointing someone else.
I know the words hurt. S1 said some very hurtful things to us at about that age and disappeared for an entire holiday season one year. But he got over it and so did we. We didn’t not know where he was. But looking past those after a while may help. In our family we have always treated holidays and event days like birthdays and anniversaries as suggestions, not fixed dates. So many of our family are in service industries that the actual date is often hard to observe. So we pick another date. Even then we don’t always get everyone but it is better. Maybe try a new custom, gather for new years day or epiphany and travel yourself someplace fun for Christmas.
“I was the one who carried them for 9 months and stayed up with them when they were puking their guts out, so I think I kind of trump over their friends, employers and even their BFs’ families.>>”
That kind of control isn’t beneficial to anyone but the person in control. When mother trumps everyone else in every aspect, that makes it hard to live an independent life. I can see it causing a lot of friction between the spouses of such controlled adult children, and possibly even work stability. There are many, many jobs that cannot be done remotely, and they’re not even all blue-collar or retail jobs. I feel sorry for such kids.
My own kids began spending every other Christmas with their dad when they were young, so I know the heartbreak, but I also know that you make traditions as you need to. My kids are close to me and I would never begrudge them spending a certain day with their father or their significant other. There are 364 other days in the year that matter just as much.
@sseamom - My kids and I do not have friction when it comes to holidays. It is a very natural thing for people to want to celebrate holidays with their families. Why do you think it is a control issue? If given a choice, you don’t think most people want to be home? I would. I came home to see my parents and my siblings when I lived overseas. They didn’t make me and I certainly didn’t feel sorry for myself for having to make that trip. I looked forward to it.
Every family is different. It is only dysfunctional when people are resentful for doing things they don’t want to do.
I had a long response but really all I wanted to say is that -experiences, especially any time of the year, work for us with little to no expectations and all fun if not funny memories.
One son in law is 2200 miles from his parents & has a real job where he can’t just take time off easily to travel at the holiday, plus they live 20 minutes from us, his parents have come over Christmas or New Years. Our other son in law is over 4000 miles from home, so that will be rough.
Those distances make it easy for me, but I remember as a young adult, my in laws wanted us at their long standing Christmas Eve party and for morning presents and for the big Christmas Day dinner. My parents were so wonderful, they often joined the festivities at the in laws, it was not fun for them, but it was incredibly kind and forward thinking that my family never ‘fought’ for us to be with them. MIL really really wanted the holidays and my parents figured they had us around most of the time the rest of the year. Everyone was in the same area, but we spent a great deal of time hanging with my folks.
I am sorry, OP, that you are so miserable. It’s easy for people to say, ‘get over it’ but fairly recently we chose not to have Christmas with the family in December, but later, everyone was on board and fully supportive of the idea, but still, December 25th was a lousy day, it just felt weird. And I say that having spent Thanksgiving abroad, so weird when you know all the family is together at home and the entire nation is celebrating, but you are in a place where everyone is just normal and going to school and work. It proves how holidays are just a random date on the calendar, and yet, knowing that, it still was lousy to have most of my kids not home.
@oldfort you ask,“Why do you think it is a control issue?” because upthread you say that you’ve told your D’s that they are expected to spend Christmas day with you, and that their future spouses’ needs regarding their families on Christmas comes second, that they can work from your location, take vacation, fly on Christmas Day, whatever it takes. You put YOUR needs first and all but demand you get “first dibs” on your D’s and their entire families when they have them. If that isn’t control, I don’t know what is.
Of course many people want to spend the holiday with their families, but you act like it’s just easy for couples to split their visits, no matter their jobs or their location. What will you do if one of your D’s marries someone whose mother demands that HE spend Christmas Day with HER? Which mother who gave birth to their child and cleaned up after them when they were sick “wins”, and why?
I need to give my parents an extra hug in the morning before they leave for never saying or implying that because they took care of me when I was younger (kind of their job since they chose to bring me into the world) that they have dibs over me for the rest of my life.
I wonder if my spouse gets dibs after a while since he’s the one who has probably been with me more times than my parents while I was “puking my guts out” and has spent more time with me in the hospital than they did. (I have fantastic parents, I just wasn’t all that sick until my young adult years when I was in a committed relationship.)
I don’t deal well with being told what to do and manipulated. I’d recoil at either set of parents demanding that we did anything. (Which actually happened this Christmas and has made me not want to go see my in laws but that is another story entirely.)
(Note: not directed at the OP.)
Many years ago, because of posts on the topic of holiday pressures on this and other sites, I told my kids, then still in school and unpartnered, that I never wanted holidays to be a source of pressure from me. As long as they are in H and my lives, and we get together during the year, I said I would never pressure them to be with us any particular day.
Now both my kids are married and it is time to follow through on that. D tends to alternate major holidays between us and her H’s mom in another city to which they need to fly further than to us. But this year they were coming to us for Christmas (had flown to her H’s mom at Thanksgiving) and we invited her (divorced and difficult but well meaning) mother-in-law to join us and stay at our home for Christmas, as otherwise she would have been alone. Worked out well. But honestly, I really think I would be fine with neither kid here.
Newlywed S was with us for neither Thanksgiving nor Christmas and was with his wife’s family for both occasions this year, but that was in part because his wife had to be on call for Christmas (five hours away) and her parents traveled to be with them. For Thanksgiving they had all gone to daughter-in-law’s family’s extended family celebration at a location several hours from us. I had even told d-in-law’s mom, before the wedding, that H and I would never pressure “the kids” re holidays – simply do not want this to be an issue.
I am fine being on our own. We were “abandoned” (JK) for Thanksgiving as both kids were with spouses’ families for that holiday this year and so H and I just went to H’s sister’s for the first time in many years. Fine my me. (Actually, H finds this harder and is more sad not having our kids with us. I just say if they are not with us we can do something different, perhaps even do a little getaway.) Frankly, hosting can be a LOT of work and I have limited energy so each situation has its plusses and minuses for me.
Anyhow, I am at peace and simply never wanted my kids with me due to pressure or being guilted into it. Would much rather they come because they WANT to be with us. Fortunately, so far that is how it seems to be. Son’s in-laws are local to us, and we get along well, and get together with them on occasion even without “the kids.”
I just prefer that people be with me because they want to, not because they feel obligated to. Works for me.
Our kids stopped coming to our home for Thanksgiving when they attended college 2500 miles away. The past few years, both kids spent Thanksgiving with us but not this year. I am happy when they can join us but fine when they can’t. There is a lot of family around me–my folks and subs and many nieces and nephews.
@VaBluebird I guess I’m one of those rare moms who “loses” her daughter to the son-in-law’s family at Christmas. (Not an actual official SIL in our case, but he might as well be.) They live far from us, and near his family, and they don’t get much time off for Christmas, so it only makes sense.
Would we rather have them here? Of course, and we explicitly invite them every year. But it doesn’t work for them. We can’t control that. All we can control is how we respond to them, and how we cope.
So we don’t tell them about our disappointment, or make them feel guilty. We tell them we understand, which we do. We are fortunate that the extended family gathers here (because my mom lives near me); having a full, noisy house all day helps to distract. We all talk with D by phone after dinner, and we convey greetings to his family which is not only nice, but reminds us that they are not the enemy. And, most helpfully, she comes here in late January, when her schedule is more free, to celebrate my mom’s birthday. I sort of try to think of that as our Christmas get-together, but without all the busyness of actual Christmas to interfere with our time.
It’s not ideal, but it helps somewhat in warding off sadness about something that I can’t change. I’d love nothing more than to have her under my roof for every Christmas for the rest of my life, but that’s not happening, so I’m trying to find ways to make the best of it.
Had a conversation along these lines with DS on Christmas Eve as he was helping to prepare the dining room for our celebration. It was not planned but the conversation became about how we would arrange the table “when he and his cousins start bringing SO’s to the meal”. I hope it was heard as “all are welcome” rather than “you must attend”. DS spent part of TG with SO for the first time this year and I was a little surprised but was able to recover and say it would be fine when he asked. I think it was hard for him to miss that part of the day with his grandparents. I remember those same feelings of wanting the familiar but wanting to spend time with SO when I was seriously dating/ engaged. He attended all of our usual Christmas gatherings and SO joined in late afternoon on Christmas Day. I hope that I can always remember that it is a time of adjustment for him as well and not create a situation where he spends time with us out of guilt but rather because he sincerely wants to be there. Hugs to you OP. It is okay to need a minute to absorb the change. Your DS may not have completely sorted out his own feelings about it all and it just came out all wrong.
You are projecting and putting words in my mouth I didn’t say. If you read it carefully, I was responding to posts about their kids wanting to spend xmas with their friends, employers (boss from work) and their GF/BF families. In my view, when one is married the in-laws are then part of family, and it is up to the couple to balance out where to spend their holidays. As I stated before, my (extended) family has done everything possible to be home for xmas, and it included their in-laws’ family. Yes, there were years when we would have preferred not to travel, but for us the benefit out weighted the hassle. Again, I think we are the norm because I don’t know any of my kids’ friends who didn’t make it home this holiday time.
It really stinks when things change and you realize they aren’t going back. You need to mourn them, it’s a common human emotion. It gets better but you feel crappy at the time. Hugs, @VaBluebird
Did your son have any explanation on why he will always spend Christmas at the in laws? Does DIL live far from her family’s? It is hurtful that he said that but I wonder if there is any explainable reason. Maybe not and still I think he could have been more flexible. Sometimes I think kids go for the path of least resistance and my kids do this too. I sometimes wonder that by being nice, I get walked all over.
Everyone says we should get together in the summer or go on vacation together but my S has made it clear that they don’t want to spend their limited vacation time with us. It’s also not that easy to go to them as my dil announced that they are going to be in their house next year. We have elderly parents that would be alone if we weren’t there and it’s not that easy for us to travel with them to the kids house.
I’m jealous of the people who say they will travel to the kids house or who say they stayed home once they had kids. We can’t figure that out without hurting feelings and having family members with no place else to go.
Never say never…
It is just a new set of expectations to get used to is all. You will cope:). Be flexible and it will all be fine.
For the poster with the idea thar her D must spend Christmas with them forever in time…I have 2 boys. I can say this idea is what will make MILs look suspiciously on all girlfriends!! LOL. Just a joke.