Vent your holiday stress and drama HERE!

@kendramage Next year, you should plan the family Christmas. Avoid the problem. As far as this year, is family Christmas an all day event? Could you still do your anniversary plans too? Does your DH not come to family Christmas? If he does, you would still be together for your anniversary. If my DH and I have "going out" plans for a birthday or anniversary, we just go on whatever day is most convenient. Sometimes it is the actual date, other years some other day works better.

Nothing that dramatic but trying to juggle things and work around schedules and weather is driving me batty we had to cancel Thanksgiving due to illness and snow so I don't want to cancel but it is so tempting. Seriously if it wasn't for DS I think DH would be all for it. I'm tired of trying to make everyone happy and juggle and then of course it is supposed to rain for a week or so so trying to work around that as people don't want to drive in the rain as it adds an hour to the drive and I don't blame them. We will have a nice quiet actual Christmas day at home which is supposed to be sunny. The other two family get togethers will happen when they happen.

Hold up. I'm still stuck on having a family Christmas party at 2pm on a work day.

Yeah I’m still pissed I had to find out my brother died on Facebook this time last year. This dead stuff on Facebook has to stop.

My aunt died a few months ago.  I found out via google a month after the fact.  No one to this day has called or said one word.  She couldn't stand my sister and I, anyway.  Her obituary didn't include her two nieces who both tried to include her in our lives.   Still, it would have been nice to be told.  Oh well, it's not like we were besties.   I'm sorry about your dh's uncle.  

Thats horrible. I dont understand some people. 

My brother has been married a year and a half. This is his second married Christmas, and third Christmas with this woman.

They've spent every Christmas, except for 2 hours the first Christmas, with his wife's parents.

Wife's parents live 4 miles from me. Brother lives about 15 miles from me.

He has now asked me 3 times if we will just come to her parents' Christmas dinner so we don't have a separate Christmas at my house with my parents (who live 2 hours away).

I've told him no, firmly. 1. My biological father will be there, with whom I have 0 contact and 0 relationship and I'm not ready to introduce that dynamic to my kids (abuse/abandonment situation and my kids don't know he exists. My mom's husband is who they know is my dad and their grandpa.) But moreover, 2. DH's own parents live in town too and DH wants to see his own family. So when brother and wife and my mom go to his in-laws' house, we will go to my in-laws' house. But brother keeps asking me, as though we haven't talked about it. I know it's just because he doesn't want to also come to my house (not for any conflict with me but because they always spend every holiday only with her family) but I wish he'd just come out and say it instead of pretending we haven't already had this conversation. And I wish the distribution of sharing holidays was a little more fair. But that is what it is and I'm learning to deal with it.

And this is an example of the reason I cut ties w/my huge extended family.  They're a bunch of huge extended rotten eggs.

My siblings are being buttholes.

Dh is participating in a world record attempt. It began last Tuesday and goes through Saturday morning. It has meant that he hasn't been home much. He has also taken 4 vacation days to accommodate it. We have 4 kids (8, 6, 3, 1). Yes, I am a Sahm, but I am used to him helping out at least a little. He has done 1 thing for Christmas, bought a switch lite for our 6-year-old. And my guess is that will be the only thing he does. And he will complain about me overdoing it.

I am tired. The baby has decided to fight nap time and bedtime. Last night he was pissy because she was having a really hard time going to sleep and he wanted to be sleeping because he had to get up in the middle of the night for his thing. I was trying everything to help her. I ended up sitting on the floor next to her crib shushing and singing till she fell asleep so it wouldn't "disturb" him.

I am dreading spending Dec 31 - Jan 6th with his family. We lucked out at thanksgiving and our flights got canceled due to snow. So we rescheduled. I thought we were going to get lucky and my inlaws would have already headed back home (where we live), but no. They are flying out Christmas Eve, so they can be with their favorite child and coming back the same day we are. This was after they spent a week out there for Thanksgiving, came home for 5 days, but were too busy to see us, before they headed to Patagonia. They will be back for 4 days or so before heading back out to see dh's sisters for Christmas. I can't stand them, but it sucks for my kids. They keep asking why my inlaws spend so much more time with their cousins when we live 15 minutes away and the cousins are a plane flight away.

I am burned out. I am tired of being the one that makes the holidays happen. I am tired of being the one that does 99% of the stuff at home, but dh gets the credit because he is the "fun" one. I am tired of being looked down on because I am a sahm.

I wish for once someone saw me and thought of me. But I'm not holding my breath on that one!

How inconsiderate... Perhaps a short email with a slight dose of passive agressiveness is in place. I would reply to your sister's email, copy the family and say something like: "Thank you very much for your invitation. We would love to celebrate with the family but like every year, December 23rd is a very special day for DH and me that we celebrate together as we have done for the past 23 years. I hope you understand, have a wonderful Christmas and hopefully we can celebrate it together next year!"