Reply to Do you help plan Christmas if you don't host?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you stay with family for Christmas, do you get any say? Or do you just defer to what the host wants to do and eat? We have kids and I want to include things that they’d enjoy on Christmas Eve or Christmas, but my ideas get shot down/ there are already other things planned. Even things like leaving cookies for Santa don’t happen.

Talking to friends this seems an issue with inlaws more than parents. Parents only seem to seek their daughter’s advice and never consult their son or son’s wife. My SILs spend days planning the menu with my MIL. 
[/quote]

Op, do you realize that "help plan" and "have a say" in your context are wildly different things. Help plan = discuss with host how you could HELP: which dish is not covered yet that you could cook at home and bring, picking up ice or something else on the way, discussing who would supervise kids, help set the table, clean up and dish leftovers. That's helping to plan.

"having a say" in your context is dictating your preferences to the host. In no way this is helpful or related to "help".  I don't know your family, and why cookies thing is not practiced by the host. Maybe there are ants in the house or her kids are pre-diabetic.  Maybe she has no cleaning service and picking up cookie crumbs all over the house after hosting family Xmas is a bit too much for her.  Could be something else. But they are a host, and if they don't want it - as a civilized guest you'll have to respect it.

Please don't kid yourself about being "helpful" with your suggestions. Your whims are yours alone and don't help anybody.[/quote]

If your in-laws are like this, just don't go.  Personally, I don't WANT to go to my in-laws for the holidays.  They want us to come.  Frankly, we are doing them a favor, because I would MUCH rather stay home and have the holiday in my own house.  So if me wanting to leave out cookies is such a freaking imposition, then I'll just stay home.  Happily.

And "having a say" is not dictating.  It's asking and being allowed to have some input in how to celebrate as a family.  If there is a real reason that they don't want to do X, then they should say so.  [/quote]

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