Don’t know how Thanksgiving isn’t happening

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like a lot of these conflicts come from the fact that way more moms were SAHMs when were growing up and now there are a lot more two working parent families. No idea if that is the case with OP and her sons and DILs, but most of my friends are working moms who had SAHMs growing up. Everything surrounding the holidays is more difficult with two working parents.

My mom, who does NOT have Alzheimer’s, is known to call me around 2:30 pm and say “want to get together for coffee?” “That sounds nice mom, but I’m AT WORK.” “Oh. I don’t even know what day of the week it is. It’s such a shame that your husband doesn’t provide the way your dad did so you could relax a little.” Are we really going to get into this conversation right now?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Well, now you blew it. New Thanksgiving tradition of everyone doing what they want. Enjoy your no work but lonely Thanksgiving.

NP and do you realize you’re talking to every mother of adult children? Any mom who has hosted tons should be able to say, I’m tired. And a son should step up and host for once. Even if that means heating up food from Wegmans or arranging a restaurant and everyone pays their own way. At the very least, there should have been more discussion. To leave it with “we’ll figure it out” and then to pull a fast one that leaves your frequent hosts out in the cold isn’t fair.

This is very dependent on the ages/health/capability of all of the parties in question.

A empty nest healthy retired couple in their early 60s expecting their adult children with busy jobs and young kids to host them for thanksgiving because they’re “tired” and no longer feel like hosting comes across as selfish and tone deaf.

However if the grandparents are elderly or have health issues and are actually no longer positioned to step up to host then obviously just abandoning them at that point to make other plans is cruel.

From OP’s posts it sounds like she is in the first category.

This. Are the parents of young children not tired? If retirees overextend and get tired they can rest as much as they like. Is OP under the impression that because she was a SAHM, her DILs should be too?

At least 1 DIL offered to host at some point. Plenty of parents with kids host their own Thanksgiving.

Yes, and OP turned down DIL and kept playing Perpetual Hostess for multiple years after. Even if it’s true she had CA guests that year, she should have made a point to say, “But that said, I would absolutely love to visit your home for Thanksgiving, and help in any way that would be helpful. Can we take you up on that next year?”

Seriously - so tired of the Boomers who won’t give up control until the last minute. AND also trying to control everyone else’s time off (beach week, which presumably they took time off work for) and Thanksgiving every year. I’m a similar DIL and I am going to be 60 before I get to host my own holiday in my own home at the rate things are going. Love my mother and MIL, but they both will not relinquish being hostess, even though they can barely handle it in their late 70s. I help out, when they allow it.

Oh go f__k yourself. Having a bad mother and mother in law doesn’t give you a license to malign an entire generation

[Anonymous]

I'd say it's time to let go of the leash. Your son literally told you they have no time for their own family vacations! Instead of fretting over hosting, it's time to book your own vacation over Thanksgiving and go do something else than forcing your adult kids to visit you with their kids and wives in tow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, now you blew it. New Thanksgiving tradition of everyone doing what they want. Enjoy your no work but lonely Thanksgiving.

NP. Why are you being such a nasty B?

[Anonymous]

OP, it sounds like they have said no to Thanksgiving plans with other family to be with you - I don’t think it’s unseasonable for one of your daughters in law to make plans with her aunt now that you’re not hosting.

Not this year doesn’t mean never again. It’s also okay for plans to change and new traditions to start.

[Anonymous]

It is June. Are people really making plans for Thanksgiving already? I guess so. I don’t know what I’m doing two months from now let alone what I want to do for the holidays. Lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Families scatter at the earliest excuse and you provided it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:If you don't want to host, you get to control that. You don't get to control deciding someone else will host.

If you want to get together, then suggest that everyone meet up a week after their Thanksgiving plans to catch up at a restaurant.

+1 if my mom or MIL don’t host the holidays (esp Thanksgiving because it involves a lot of cooking), then we won’t be spending it with them! No way I’m hosting it at my home. I am busy enough already.

So OP is right it is pay to play?

In many cases yes. Most young working parents who get maybe 2-3 weeks leave/year (half of which is eaten up by kids being sick, school closures etc) don’t want to use up their precious remaining leave cleaning and cooking to host grandparents for a holiday meal and can’t afford to cater or take everyone out to a restaurant.

Some people just can't be pleased. They don't want to host or be hosted.

Correction: they don’t want to host you, and they don’t want to be hosted by you.

So true. :

[Anonymous]

It's a lot of work. I did it for a few years and gave up. We have a small house and it was expensive. It was cheaper for us to go out so we started going out each year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thank you, I’m taking in your great points. I think a year off might be a good thing, then I can hopefully regroup with them another holiday.

You have a great attitude, OP. You now have Freedom! Freedom to do what you want and how you please for the holiday season. Enjoy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You literally just spent a week with them at a beach house! While this may have been fantastic for you, it may have been the 7 th circle of hell for your adult kids.

We refuse to do a beach week or any vacation anymore where MIL has any control over our accommodations. She’ll be in a big comfy room with an en suite, sitting room and king sized bed. Her adult children and their children will be in tiny rooms with futons, air mattresses, bunk beds and expect the young children to sleep in sleeping bags on the floor. She will squeal piggishly about how fun it is for kids to camp inside on vacation. She pats herself on the back for hosting such a fantastic and delightful vacation. The only draw to this nightmare was time with siblings and cousins getting to play together.

OP you need to learn to read the room! You let them off the hook for your obligatory Thanksgiving and they ran with relief in multiple directions. Perhaps you should be more aware that you are creating visits which are obli-cations not vacations.

Nice job projecting your own issues, especially this part. You sound vile.

This made me laugh. I'm picturing the piggish MIL now. She likes to be called memère. She wears blowsy muumuus and spends a lot on herself- the salon, her nails, but curiously, not a nutritionist or a physical trainer because she knows better. She books the accommodations with just one "primary" because who else really wants that? They will all love just being together in the common spaces! Then she sleeps in every day, doesn't help with grandchildren, and pouts if there's no coffee left.

[Anonymous]

Here's a suggestion for families who are within driving distance to spend a day together.

It started after I got divorced and had the kids every other year. On the years I did not have them, I scheduled "Thanksgiving" dinner at my house on the Sunday before.

Groceries are fully stocked, you shop early before the last minute crowds, and the dinner feels just like Thanksgiving. As your kids age and partner up, they especially appreciate this, since it frees them up to go to their in-laws gathering on the actual holiday.

Over the years, I came to prefer Thanksgiving dinner on the Sunday before. I could spend the next week transitioning the house over to Christmas while everyone else was fretting about seeking water chestnuts for the stuffing or mini marshmallows for the yams. Meanwhile I have a full selection of Christmas lights to choose from at Target or Lowes before the crowds pour in that Friday.

That said, I would have picked up a clue when the OP's DIL asked to host a few years back. OP should have worked something out with her own guests to go to the DIL's that year, or at the least OP should have encouraged it for the year after. Some DDs or DILs want to host and I think it's important to support this and even if we "matriarchs" feel it is our right, I think it is more important to let the next generation take on the challenge when they express an interest.

At the same time, if the adult children are overwhelmed from work and kids and the retired grandparents have the time, money and space to host, by all means do so to make it easier on the young parents, if that is what your adult kids prefer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You literally just spent a week with them at a beach house! While this may have been fantastic for you, it may have been the 7 th circle of hell for your adult kids.

We refuse to do a beach week or any vacation anymore where MIL has any control over our accommodations. She’ll be in a big comfy room with an en suite, sitting room and king sized bed. Her adult children and their children will be in tiny rooms with futons, air mattresses, bunk beds and expect the young children to sleep in sleeping bags on the floor. She will squeal piggishly about how fun it is for kids to camp inside on vacation. She pats herself on the back for hosting such a fantastic and delightful vacation. The only draw to this nightmare was time with siblings and cousins getting to play together.

OP you need to learn to read the room! You let them off the hook for your obligatory Thanksgiving and they ran with relief in multiple directions. Perhaps you should be more aware that you are creating visits which are obli-cations not vacations.

Nice job projecting your own issues, especially this part. You sound vile.

This made me laugh. I'm picturing the piggish MIL now. She likes to be called memère. She wears blowsy muumuus and spends a lot on herself- the salon, her nails, but curiously, not a nutritionist or a physical trainer because she knows better. She books the accommodations with just one "primary" because who else really wants that? They will all love just being together in the common spaces! Then she sleeps in every day, doesn't help with grandchildren, and pouts if there's no coffee left.

She never cooks the bacon but she scares it up, later denying it. She gorges herself and then complains that there was just too much food! Come on people! The elders should stuff themselves and the rest should go hungry! Builds character.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last week DH and I hosted our adult sons, our DILs and four grandchildren at our beach house. We had a fantastic time. It couldn’t have gone better.

One evening after dinner, I brought up that I don’t want to host Thanksgiving this year, I’m just tired of it and I need a break. We rarely see our whole family at once, so I thought it was a good time to discuss. My sons and DILs said oh of course, that’s a lot of work, we’ll figure something out. This week, one of my sons texted to say that they’re going to his wife’s aunt’s house for Thanksgiving, and the other son told me they booked a vacation over Thanksgiving as they said they never vacation as their own family.

Of course I understand all of this, I’m just a bit surprised that neither of my sons nor their wives volunteered to host. My eldest DIL wanted to host a few years ago, but that was the year I was already set to host because there were already relatives visiting from California. Even a restaurant idea could have been part of “we’ll figure this out.” I get that DH and I don’t have a right to all of their time, but we rarely get Christmas with either son, and now we don’t get Thanksgiving either? I just feel very used, like if I don’t “pay” with my labor, I don’t get to play with my grandkids.

I'm sorry they have their own families now OP. And if you start in with the guilt trips and self pity you will not be helping your cause.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, now you blew it. New Thanksgiving tradition of everyone doing what they want. Enjoy your no work but lonely Thanksgiving.

NP and do you realize you’re talking to every mother of adult children? Any mom who has hosted tons should be able to say, I’m tired. And a son should step up and host for once. Even if that means heating up food from Wegmans or arranging a restaurant and everyone pays their own way. At the very least, there should have been more discussion. To leave it with “we’ll figure it out” and then to pull a fast one that leaves your frequent hosts out in the cold isn’t fair.

Totally wrong here PP. The sons have their own families now. Nothing is stopping OP from having Thanksgiving. She specifically said she didn't want to this year because she was tired. The sons and their families honored her wishes.