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[quote=Anonymous]My ILs will be visiting us for Christmas, likely staying overnight about four or five nights. DH’s cousin is also staying overnight for a night or two. Cousin is super chill, no problems there.

ILs are very nice but are always “on” and never seem to be at ease as guests in our home, which makes things feel tense and weird at a time when we should be relaxed and enjoying the holidays at home. By this I mean that they will wake up at 6 a.m. and instead of either staying downstairs in the guest room sitting area, or even coming upstairs and making themselves coffee (which I always set up the night before), they will come upstairs and literally sit and wait for us to come downstairs. We usually sleep in until about 7:30 or 8 during breaks. We set out food, put notes about what is where, remind them that coffee is set up and they can help themselves, but they are sitting there waiting. They spring up the second one of us comes downstairs and the vibe is essentially “finally, we can finally have coffee and food, we’ve been waiting and waiting.” (This is clearly a them thing, as my parents and every other houseguest we have ever had has felt free to turn the coffee on and help themselves to muffins, etc.)

They sit and stare and seem to consider focused adult conversation the only acceptable activity. They even expect our young kids to just sit around and talk to them. DH and I (and DH’s cousin) do sit and talk with them quite a lot, but we’ve got things to do, and we want to get out of the house a bit with the kids, to go to the park, maybe a movie, maybe a museum, just low-key stuff that they are totally physically able to do. But all they want to do is sit and talk.

I leave out magazines and the WiFi password, I put out the paper and make sure they know it contains a crossword, but forget it—all they want and expect to do is talk, and passive aggressively whine when we do anything else. “We came here to see YOU!” Yes, and you are seeing us for virtually every waking hour for several days, but I’m going to let the kids play with their toys, go ride their bikes, and I have laundry to do, and may run out to see my cousin who lives one town over, etc. Any mention of anyone leaving the house, doing their own thing, or reading a book is “rude.”

How do I help to create a more relaxing dynamic this year? DH is also dreading their visit and has said he honestly prefers when my parents visit for the holidays because they are more relaxed. I honestly want to make this better—my kids are old enough to think their grandparents are weird, hover-y and they don’t really like hanging out with them. Looking for solution-oriented advice, please.[/quote]

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