Anonymous wrote:Why not alternate years for picking the location?

This is a great suggestion!

Anonymous wrote:To start with, your title is off-putting and misguided. Your son/DIL are self sufficient adults. They are not asking for a new vacation- they are telling you their plans and graciously inviting you to join them (and offering to pay!). You should feel incredibly grateful that with presumably limited vacation time themselves they have up until now continued to go on the vacation of your choosing (with your friends- which frankly sounds miserable) each year and now that they are looking to create their own traditions and memories they are still trying to include you.

This. It's not an ask.

To start with, your title is off-putting and misguided. Your son/DIL are self sufficient adults. They are not asking for a new vacation- they are telling you their plans and graciously inviting you to join them (and offering to pay!). You should feel incredibly grateful that with presumably limited vacation time themselves they have up until now continued to go on the vacation of your choosing (with your friends- which frankly sounds miserable) each year and now that they are looking to create their own traditions and memories they are still trying to include you.

Anonymous wrote:Why not alternate years for picking the location?

+1

That would be the best, for the relationship - be a good MIL OP.

DH and I hate the beach, and I hate going to the same place every year, especially since we don't have a lot of vacation time, so it also is not great to spend the only vacation we have with the same people every single trip of our lives. We did it for our parents for a long time. Then one day we realized we had never been anywhere with just us and the kids, and it was kind of an awful feeling. All of our early dreams of showing our kids the world were slipping away. So we made a change. There is such a thing as too much compromise.

It sounds like your son and dIL want to keep vacationing together but want a change. I think it’s very kind of them to be looking for an option that includes you. They could have sent a note saying ‘next summer we are going somewhere else— enjoy the beach!’ Instead they are trying to include you.
It’s perfectly reasonable for two adults to decide for themselves where they would like to spend their vacation. You can try to accommodate that, or vacation separately and look for other opportunities to see them and the grandkids. But if you hold it against them you are being entirely unreasonable.

There's no issue here. People want different things, they can compromise or go their own way, it's fine. The son and DIL are not being coercive or manipulative. They are being honest and trying to meet OP halfway by offering to pay and trying to get their input/approval on houses.

The only manipulative behavior I hear is OP saying "what's wrong with the beach?" That's obnoxious. No one said anything is wrong with the beach, this is not meant as some kind of insult. They want to do something different. They are still making an effort to make it a family vacation. Asking what's wrong with the beach is like asking "what's your problem with us?" There is no problem. They want to do something else. It's fine.

One think I'll add is that I have found it important to form my own family traditions with my spouse and kids. It is important for our sense of cohesiveness as a family and to create healthy and meaningful relatioships between DH and I, and between us and our kids. That doesn't mean we don't join in on traditions from either family, we do. But for instance we always do winter break on our own because unlike our extended families we are not religious, and we want to do it in our own secular way so that our kids grow up with our traditions, not a Christian tradition that we don't subscribe to. Our families have handled this remarkably well.

Perhaps the son and DIL are also trying to start their own traditions, something that can be meaningful to their own family in the way that the beach trips were meaningful for OP as her kids grew up. You have to let the next generation figure some of that out for themselves. Their family is a part of yours but is not *your* family in the same way it was when you were raising your own children.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is there to do in the mountains, is it an active vacation for elderly people who may not be active? Are there mobility issues? My in-laws are always twisting ankles and getting hurt or having back and knee issues so hiking isn't really an option. It's not clear if this is even realistic as a family vacation.

Funny that we are on page 9 and OP never came back to talk about that. I’m guessing it’s not an issue.

Because Op wanted validation that her son and DIL are in the wrong about wanting to end the “tradition”. And she didn’t get it. So she is out.

It’s a reasonable ask. Not everyone loves the beach or even loves going to the same place every year. It doesn’t mean they don’t value the memories - they just want a little variety. They’re not in the wrong in any way.

Anonymous wrote:Old people love the mountains! Have you ever heard of the Catskills? It Vermont, in it's entirety? Old, old, old. The one time we took my parents to the beach they complained about the heat the entire time.

I was more specifically asking about this mountain trip. Is it a place old people like to go for other old people or is it more geared towards active people who want to hike, bike, fish, water ski if on on a lake, etc. It could be that OP feels like she was just being asked as a courtesy knowing that it's not a trip she could or would make. But generally people get stuck in their ways. My in-laws visit their lake house only in the summer, they never want to go anywhere else or do anything else. They just sit around at the lake. It's boring AF. I never go.

Old people love the mountains! Have you ever heard of the Catskills? It Vermont, in it's entirety? Old, old, old. The one time we took my parents to the beach they complained about the heat the entire time.

I can’t think of anything more hellacious than going to the same place for vacation every year with my in-laws and their friends. I’m curious to hear from OP why she thinks her DS and SIL would want to vacation with OPs friends?

Anonymous wrote:What is there to do in the mountains, is it an active vacation for elderly people who may not be active? Are there mobility issues? My in-laws are always twisting ankles and getting hurt or having back and knee issues so hiking isn't really an option. It's not clear if this is even realistic as a family vacation.

Funny that we are on page 9 and OP never came back to talk about that. I’m guessing it’s not an issue.

Anonymous wrote:What is there to do in the mountains, is it an active vacation for elderly people who may not be active? Are there mobility issues? My in-laws are always twisting ankles and getting hurt or having back and knee issues so hiking isn't really an option. It's not clear if this is even realistic as a family vacation.

Well, not all elderly people are in-active. But my parents' favorite activities include fishing (aka sitting by the lake). Driving around to see the leaves. Going to restaurants, concerts, small town parades. Taking the gondola up to the top of the ski area to see the view/foliage. Baking, board games, fire in the fireplace/firepit, grilling. Not getting heatstroke like you do at the beach!

What is there to do in the mountains, is it an active vacation for elderly people who may not be active? Are there mobility issues? My in-laws are always twisting ankles and getting hurt or having back and knee issues so hiking isn't really an option. It's not clear if this is even realistic as a family vacation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I have gone to the beach (Fenwick) for decades, and of course brought our kids when they were young. After my son and my daughter grew up and each got married, we've invited their families to join us each year. (We also include my husband's sister and her son, and my husband's mother while she was alive.) We sometimes invite friends, so we usually rent from one of three nice properties. We have good relationships with the owners of each property, and we enjoy the trip every year.

Apparently my son and his wife do not wish to do the beach trip next year--they already agreed to this year when DH and I reached out in January. They are sending us links for mountain resorts, and are offering to pay. DH and I would rather be at the beach, but DH does not have a lot of vacation time (he manages a pool company, so unfortunately little work from home opportunity from them, and summers are obviously quite busy). But I would hate to miss out on the opportunity to vacation with our grandkids.

Am I wrong to feel that this is a lot to process? We pay for lovely accommodations. I understand that DIL wants something different and is offering to pay, but I still kind of wonder why a free beach week is so awful and tradition needs to be changed.

OP your post is cringeworthy! First you start by saying your son and DIL but by the end you show nasty passive aggression with ‘I know my DIL’. Next you move onto whining about why your lovely accommodation is so awful. You know that no one said your beach rental is awful. Your SON just does not want to do the same trip year after year. For the trifecta, you go on about how you don’t have enough vacation time to do bth trips while never considering that your adult children don’t have unlimited vacation!

You are a very bad mother and MIL.

This is ridiculous and so over-the-top. OP can be hurt and wrong about the beach vacation without being a horrible person, mother, or MIL.

Hurt? There is no emotional injury here. OP is hurt that 2 adults would like to go to the mountains rather than the beach.