Anonymous wrote:OP is a self-centered bum. Doesn’t want to travel. Doesn’t want to host. Expects the whole world to cater to her.

How about the whole family travels to the in laws without her for the holidays and leaves her alone. Would she like that?

I think you may be projecting a bit. Self-centered? She is saying she is not going to be the laboring oar and wants to enjoy her holiday. And there is ZERO wrong with that. Less than zero. That is not "self-centered" under any definition.

This is no different than any other boundary for any other event. People just expect different because it's The Holidays. No. She's not up for hosting or traveling, she doesn't have to. MIL can come and do it that way or not at all.

Anonymous wrote:I just don’t understand what’s such a big deal about traveling or hosting. It doesn’t have to be a full Pinterest spread. We do it and it’s not the slave labor some posters are making it out to be. OP’s mom clearly does it, in addition to traveling and taking care of OP’s kids too. OP just…can’t? Why not?

Her OP is pretty clear: she doesn’t want to cook and clean for eight. Different people have different preferences— yours apparently includes cooking and cleaning for people and OPs doesn’t.

I just don’t understand the big deal about insisting someone host or travel. There’s a very lovely third option where she and her family have a lovely small Christmas this year. That doesn’t do anyone any harm but to read it here you’d think she was committing a crime.

Anonymous wrote:I think you’re struggling to find a polite way to say this because it’s a rude thing to say.

Why is it rude to say you want the holidays to be easy for you? That's a boundary, and it's one people are allowed to make, not rudeness. Honestly, some of you are just gluttons for punishment over the holidays and insist on allowing things to be difficult and not what you want it to be.

PP here. Lol I meant to say including her husband.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is a self-centered bum. Doesn’t want to travel. Doesn’t want to host. Expects the whole world to cater to her.

How about the whole family travels to the in laws without her for the holidays and leaves her alone. Would she like that?

Yeah I’m sure a two year old would love to be separated from their mother on Christmas so their grandmother doesn’t feel slighted. You may think OP is a bum, but you’re just sick.

I’ll tell you what: OP’s entire extended family, including her brother, no doubt think she’s a difficult PITA.

I just don’t understand what’s such a big deal about traveling or hosting. It doesn’t have to be a full Pinterest spread. We do it and it’s not the slave labor some posters are making it out to be. OP’s mom clearly does it, in addition to traveling and taking care of OP’s kids too. OP just…can’t? Why not?

Anonymous wrote:OP is a self-centered bum. Doesn’t want to travel. Doesn’t want to host. Expects the whole world to cater to her.

How about the whole family travels to the in laws without her for the holidays and leaves her alone. Would she like that?

Yeah I’m sure a two year old would love to be separated from their mother on Christmas so their grandmother doesn’t feel slighted. You may think OP is a bum, but you’re just sick.

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure how all those memories and working hard are mutually exclusive? Why can’t these holidays be shared with extended family? I’ll be really bummed if suddenly my kids just shut the door on spending holidays with me because their spouse is a lazy and socially anxious. I warn them against people like OP. I know a marriage with someone like that will be miserable.

I think the holidays can be shared. But my definition of shared doesn’t mean “fly with small children in the peak season OR host a high-maintenance crowd in your home”. It can also mean having a small Christmas at home one year and traveling the next.

I’m the poster whose mother exhausted herself every Christmas. I really resented that, it gave me a very bad impression of the family she was catering to, and I don’t want my kids to have that memory.

OP is a self-centered bum. Doesn’t want to travel. Doesn’t want to host. Expects the whole world to cater to her.

How about the whole family travels to the in laws without her for the holidays and leaves her alone. Would she like that?

I’m not sure how all those memories and working hard are mutually exclusive? Why can’t these holidays be shared with extended family? I’ll be really bummed if suddenly my kids just shut the door on spending holidays with me because their spouse is a lazy and socially anxious. I warn them against people like OP. I know a marriage with someone like that will be miserable.

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Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine being so lazy with kids. Christmas is about them. I go all out and it’s the thing my kids remember the most about holidays.

My parents do help me cook when they visit and my in-laws dont, but that’s because I like cooking with my mom and my in-laws instead play with dh and the kids.

I do refuse to travel for Christmas though. Other holidays are fine to travel.

Agree. Not sure why some of these people even have kids.

To have kids.

The people showing up at their home demanding to be waited on? Not kids. No one has kids thinking “at last! I can wash dishes while my in laws sit on the couch!”

I am truly sad for you that you can imagine any value in extended family holidays.

I can— and do. I don’t see value in exhausting myself to wait on people. My children won’t have holiday memories of an exhausted mother.

Heaven forfend they see their mother working hard for her family.

Right?! Especially when the alternatives are memories like snuggling with your mother in her bed reading Christmas stories, walking through Christmas lights with her, skating with her, baking cookies with her, having Christmas morning breakfast in bed with her…gosh why would you trade any of those memories for “my mother worked hard at Christmas”?

We hosted my MiL and BIL for years when my kids were little and were still able to do all of the above, except breakfast in bed because that seems terrible to me and my kids wouldn’t have wanted to do that.

I don’t see how this is either/or?!?!

In cases where the people you’re hosting require a lot of work, they are either or. My husband taught my daughter when she was very small that on Christmas morning you have to bring your parents coffee and buns in bed. Not doing that if you’ve got guests waiting around for you to make them breakfast.

However the bigger point was I consider any of these memories a million times more valuable than my kids “seeing me working hard”.

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Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine being so lazy with kids. Christmas is about them. I go all out and it’s the thing my kids remember the most about holidays.

My parents do help me cook when they visit and my in-laws dont, but that’s because I like cooking with my mom and my in-laws instead play with dh and the kids.

I do refuse to travel for Christmas though. Other holidays are fine to travel.

Agree. Not sure why some of these people even have kids.

To have kids.

The people showing up at their home demanding to be waited on? Not kids. No one has kids thinking “at last! I can wash dishes while my in laws sit on the couch!”

I am truly sad for you that you can imagine any value in extended family holidays.

I can— and do. I don’t see value in exhausting myself to wait on people. My children won’t have holiday memories of an exhausted mother.

Heaven forfend they see their mother working hard for her family.

Right?! Especially when the alternatives are memories like snuggling with your mother in her bed reading Christmas stories, walking through Christmas lights with her, skating with her, baking cookies with her, having Christmas morning breakfast in bed with her…gosh why would you trade any of those memories for “my mother worked hard at Christmas”?

We hosted my MiL and BIL for years when my kids were little and were still able to do all of the above, except breakfast in bed because that seems terrible to me and my kids wouldn’t have wanted to do that.

I don’t see how this is either/or?!?!

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Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine being so lazy with kids. Christmas is about them. I go all out and it’s the thing my kids remember the most about holidays.

My parents do help me cook when they visit and my in-laws dont, but that’s because I like cooking with my mom and my in-laws instead play with dh and the kids.

I do refuse to travel for Christmas though. Other holidays are fine to travel.

Agree. Not sure why some of these people even have kids.

To have kids.

The people showing up at their home demanding to be waited on? Not kids. No one has kids thinking “at last! I can wash dishes while my in laws sit on the couch!”

I am truly sad for you that you can imagine any value in extended family holidays.

I can— and do. I don’t see value in exhausting myself to wait on people. My children won’t have holiday memories of an exhausted mother.

Heaven forfend they see their mother working hard for her family.

??? The kids are growing up with the expectation that their mom will come and host their holidays for them when they are adults. They already have the speciation that mom will be working hard for them. The only issue is how not to fight over which sibling mom visits, which is something it looks like they haven’t learned.

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Anonymous wrote:It’s part of growing up. Start to host better. Both you and the husband.

You get 0 extra points for ruining your holidays by spending them unhappy. Life is too short to waste the precious holidays with young children by exhausting yourself and missing the magic.

Do what works for you and your kids. Host who you actually want. Everyone else can see you in 2024.

Here what your post completely ignores:

1. OP’s husband and his feelings. I guess they are irrelevant to you.

2. If OP does not want to host, she is welcome to go to her in-laws who WILL host. She doesn’t want to do that either. She’s a bum.

Do you think traveling with two children in the busiest time of the year somehow doesn’t fall into the category of “exhausting yourself and missing the magic”?

OP’s husband, hopefully, would rather miss one year hosting his parents than let his wife have a Christmas where she feels exhausted rather than happy.

Your idea that her only options are to host her in laws or be hosted are very “tails they win heads you lose” for OP. There’s a third option which is to say, lovingly and politely, thanks, but this year we’re not playing.

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Anonymous wrote:It’s part of growing up. Start to host better. Both you and the husband.

You get 0 extra points for ruining your holidays by spending them unhappy. Life is too short to waste the precious holidays with young children by exhausting yourself and missing the magic.

Do what works for you and your kids. Host who you actually want. Everyone else can see you in 2024.

Here what your post completely ignores:

1. OP’s husband and his feelings. I guess they are irrelevant to you.

2. If OP does not want to host, she is welcome to go to her in-laws who WILL host. She doesn’t want to do that either. She’s a bum.