Holiday family vents

[HomeAgain]

It's that time of year, when the closeness (or distance) is set to drive everyone nuts.  Feel free to add your vents!

 

Mine: Dh's family is planning on going in on a gift together.  His sister texted me for dh's number earlier this week to get his perspective on it/see if he wanted to chip in.  All well and good, but I really wish she had asked mine!  Our oldest is graduating this year and we're moving directly after graduation.  I mean, like the day after.  Everyone knows this.  Dh and I have been living in two different states so that our kid could finish with his school.  The group gift is to pay for dh's family to come see our kid graduate.  So now, on top of selling a house, arranging for movers, and planning a cross country trip I will be hosting family (in what house?  I don't know!) and possibly planning a small party.  And getting people around in my tiny car and.....  And nobody thought to run this by the one who is in charge of it all here. <_<  I swear between the amount of times they just flat out ignore us all and the times they do recognize us there are no happy mediums.   

[OneStepAtATime]

:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug:

 

People can get tunnel vision and not think things through.  I'm sorry, OP.  That IS frustrating.  Can you make it clear to the family that you will have no place to host anyone and reiterate that you are moving literally right afterwards?  They may know but they may not be thinking through what that actually means...

 

I had friends years ago who owned their own business.  The local economy had tanked and they were struggling to even put food on the table.  Even buying a gallon of milk had to be carefully budgeted and they were afraid they would lose their house.  Siblings decided to throw a huge party for their parents' 60th wedding anniversary several states away.  Two of the siblings worked for an airline so flights were not costly for them to get their families there.  My friend and her DH did not have that option.  They thought about not going but decided they would.

 

They wanted really badly to go because they had not seen family in quite a while (too expensive).  They wanted their children to be there, to meet aunts and uncles and cousins they had never had a chance to meet and to see their grandparents again.  They felt this might be the only chance to do so where everyone was in one place.  They put everything on a credit card, since they had no way to pay for it otherwise.  Then one of the siblings called asking them to pitch in $200 for a gift for the parents.  They politely declined and explained it just wasn't in the budget.  The sibling was highly offended that they would be the only family not doing so.  They explained that the $1800 they were spending to get there was going to have to be gift enough.  Sibling apologized and explained they had forgotten how other people have to pay full price for airline tickets.

[Guest]

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Edited November 27, 2016 by Heigh Ho

[HomeAgain]

OneStep, I totally am, but the plans seem to being made around me, not with me or to me.  At least I have 6 months to plan?  By Feb I should know if the hotels will be full.  I had planned to pack our tent anyway so we may be out at the campgrounds for the last week or so. Maybe I'll set aside our spare tent as well and be like, here's accommodations!

 

HeighHo, I think a great Christmas gift would be a gift cert for a local handyman. :lol:

[Jenny in Florida]

I was feeling pretty ambivalent about Thanksgiving even beforehand. Last year, my daughter had a mini-breakdown the Friday after the holiday, which resulted in everyone being miserable for days and her barely speaking to me for weeks. We put a bandaid on things enough for her to agree to come visit again for Christmas, which went okay, if a bit strained. In the intervening year, she's had ups and downs, but is now doing the things she needs to do to get herself more stable (specifically, seeing a therapist and taking medication). Although we haven't visited in person since last Christmas, we have been back to texting/messaging pretty much daily and video chatting at least once a week. Things seemed okay.

 

I worked really hard to keep expectations reasonable and to downplay any holiday-related pressure. It's just the four of us for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so no extended family to worry about. Thanksgiving was a fairly quiet, low-key, pleasant day. At my daughter's suggestion, we decided to go to a movie on Friday, because that seemed like a manageable way to get us all out of the house without too much stress. We chose the theater at a local shopping center we suspected would not be crowded and that would offer us a couple of hours of browsing possibilities. (I know that sounds odd on Black Friday, but this isn't your typical mall.) We took our son's girlfriend along, Everything went well. We enjoyed the browsing and the movie (Moana, in case anyone wonders). Then we were standing outside the theater chatting before splitting up to the two cars so I could drive the girlfriend home while my husband and daughter went back to our house.

 

And suddenly, things went sideways. My son made the mistake of expressing an opinion my daughter interpreted as not matching her social/political beliefs; she refused to give him a chance to explain and broke into hysterical tears. (I want to make sure that I'm clear, here: Everyone realizes that this reaction is related to my daughter's mental health issues. No one blames her or thinks she does it on purpose.) I physically stepped between them and spent a few minutes talking to my daughter, trying to help her calm down. Then we hugged, and I sent her off with my husband for the drive home.

 

I spent an hour driving my son's girlfriend home and then bringing the two of us back to our house. We talked the whole way, and my son was great about everything. He is trying really hard to understand his sister's perspective and situation and to learn how he can help support her and avoid these kinds of issues, but, you know, he's 18 and can't help feeling a bit hurt and confused, too.

 

My daughter has closed the door of the guest room and communicated only via Facebook message since getting home. She is trying hard, too, to do what she needs to do to pull herself together. And, while I've reminded her a couple of times to let me know if she needs anything or if I can help, we've told her we will do our best to stay out of her way and give her the time and space she needs.

 

So, it's a big improvement over last year's debacle, but still upsetting. 

 

I woke up early this morning, and for a few seconds, I felt so content: both of my kids in the house, a pleasant Thanksgiving accomplished, the prospect of a relaxed day ahead of me with nothing more strenous to do than go to Target to collect an online order . . . and then I remembered.

 

I turned over and went back to sleep, only to wake up a couple of hours later and go through the same sequence of realization.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Jenny in Florida

[Guest]

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Edited November 27, 2016 by Heigh Ho

[Seasider]

Maybe you need to tell them they have to "go in" deep enough to also cover a hotel room and rental car.

[SKL]

Honestly I think I would make DH send out a message ASAP saying "oops, I forgot, we don't actually have a house that day!  Sorry!"

 

I love time with my family and had a nice time on Thanksgiving.  However, I will do the mini-vent thing just because that's what we do.  :)  1. BIL who was supposedly off the sauce was very drunk before I even got to my folks' house for dinner.  It didn't get better over time.  2.  My kid broke her toe running into a door frame while playing with the cousins.  Nobody else's fault, but still a bummer!  3.  My sister who did most of the cooking was in a crabby mood and bit a couple people's heads off.  Can't say anything because after all, she did most of the work.  4.  For the first time in my 50-year life, my dad did not make the pumpkin pies.  My other sister did, and she did a great job, but I feel kinda sad that my dad was not able to do it.  It feels like an unhappy rite of passage.  Of course I knew it was coming someday, but ....  5.  I had one job for the holiday - to buy the wine.  I could not find the wine my dad likes.  Fail!  6.  Planning for Christmas is stressful as always.  No particular reason, just trying to plan and execute in advance for all the holiday doings (school stuff, family stuff, community stuff), followed immediately by our international travel (packing, what do we do with the pets etc.).

[HomeAgain]

I went back and reread messages to see if I gave the wrong idea.  The one time the thought was actually broached to me in passing (back in July), I stressed we were leaving the day after.  So....no, I didn't.

 

There's a lot that can happen between now and then, right?  I mean, if I accept the effort being made then there is no bigger rift in the relationship.  But I'm just frustrated that nobody is talking to ME about any of this, no asking what I think, how to accommodate, nothing.  I'm being bypassed like the teen.  I mean, hey, when he tried to call on Thanksgiving and got rebuffed with a "we'll call you back in a few" and he sat by his phone for 9 hours....well, that would have been a perfect opportunity to actually get to know him and talk to him and find out what he thinks or wants.

 

You know what would be a happy medium?  Coming out for his Eagle ceremony.  But again, nobody wants to talk to us about it all.  We only live here.

 

At least venting here is cathartic.  Dh hasn't quite recovered from my stress freakout when he told me.  I have 6 months to deal, right?  I can do this.  There may be a lot of really frustrated typing between now and then but I can do this.

[Guest]

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Edited November 27, 2016 by Heigh Ho