Family Vent- Your opinion please...

nicoleabrock

We celebrate Christmas with my grandmother and aunts in January and it was scheduled for this Saturday at 10am. My husband and I just found out that our son made District All-Stars for soccer!  It's a huge honor and we are so proud!  The problem is... the first game is Saturday at 10am.  So we make a plan that I go to the Christmas celebration and he takes our son to the game.  I call my aunt that set up Christmas to tell her that only I will be in attendance.  She asks me to call my grandma and tell her.  I did that last night and Grandma seemed to be understanding.  Well today, I get out of a huge meeting at work and there is a voicemail on my phone.  It's Grandma and she's in tears.  She is cancelling Christmas because my husband and son can not go.  So I call her back and talk to her about it.  She doesn't really give me a reason for cancelling other than the fact that not everyone can be there.  I explained to her that the All-Star team was very important to our son and we definitely feel that it is important to follow through with participating in those games.  She said that is fine but she is cancelling Christmas.  Ugh!  What do I do? 

juangela

Is it possible that DH and DS could come to the Christmas party after the game? Is it far away? Or could Grandma push back the start time of the party rather than canceling it (which seems rash).

Ugh. What an ugly situation . 

Karen2905

Can you have another family member (one who was planning on going) call and ask her to still have the party?

nicoleabrock

juangela:

Is it possible that DH and DS could come to the Christmas party after the game? Is it far away? Or could Grandma push back the start time of the party rather than canceling it (which seems rash).

Ugh. What an ugly situation . 

Our son has two games that day- one at 10am and one at 4pm.  Both games are 90 miles from where grandma wants to have Christmas so I don't think they would be able to make it.

nicoleabrock

Karen2905:

Can you have another family member (one who was planning on going) call and ask her to still have the party?

I asked my dad to find out what is going on and he said to just let her be.  I know my aunts will not take to this as lightly though.  I have already reached out to one of them to find out if anything can be done.

Cipolla2Be

There's only so much you can do.  They need to be more understanding and be happy that you can make it at all.  When you have kids and something this important happens, they need to understand.  Can you move xmas to the soccer field?  I'm sure he would love if the whole family came to cheer him on! 

nicoleabrock

There is only so much I can do.  Family is impossible to make happy sometimes.  This whole situation is maddening!

smcjmk09

Here's my thought... Christmas comes every year...your son making the All-Star team is a very special thing may not come every year. I think that they should deal with it. If that's her way of dealing with it, there's unfortunately not much you can do........but try to look at it this way...if she cancels the celebration then both you and your DH can go to your son's games!

KatieintheCity

Oh family. Well, HUGE congrats to your son for making the all-star soccer team! That is awesome. My brother was a really good baseball player as a kid and we used to schedule family parties, vacations, etc around his games/tournaments ALL the time. So I totally get how frustrating it can be. Is it possible to have the party on Sunday, or does he have games all weekend? If the party can't be easily moved (date or location wise) then I would call your Aunt and have her talk to your Grandma. There's no reason to cancel the fun for everyone else just because your DH and son can't make it. Promise your Grandma that the three of you will make a special visit to see her in the next few weeks so that she can get in a visit with them as well.

dvshaw

I agree with pps. You need to do what's right for you, DH, and DS. If it was going to be canceled for that day, would it be rescheduled? Or just canceled, canceled?

nicoleabrock

dvshaw:

I agree with pps. You need to do what's right for you, DH, and DS. If it was going to be canceled for that day, would it be rescheduled? Or just canceled, canceled?

It seems like it has just been canceled, canceled.  No rescheduling.  But we are going to make a point to go see Grandma soon to visit so she knows she is still a very important part of our lives.

Thanks girls for all of the advice. 

Cipolla2Be

We had issues wit DH's parents over Christmas.  They had come to visit 5 times in a row (once each month) for a week at a time.  Okay so staying for a week 5 times is really time concuming for us, especially when we were trying to plan the wedding.  SO for xmas we asked if they could just not come, we hadn't spent anytime together AND we had just seen them for Thanksgiving etc.  They BLEW up and said all of these hurtful things to Tim and said they were never coming to visit again until we came to visit them and stayed for a week.  AND they were pissed because over Easter they only go to stay for a week and wanted to stay for 2 weeks.  OMG!  But NOW they are "over it" and are acting like nothing even happened.  SO...with that said.....they will get over it.