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Christmas Eve
Hello, I have been lurking for a while and now I have a little dilema and need some advice.
My husband's sister is getting married and she is having a huge lavish wedding and decided to exclude my parents from the festivities, which is ok because I know she has some issues with them since my son was born, because my MIL claims that my mom kept the baby from her. Something that is not true, I just choose to to go to my mom, whenever I had any questions regarding the baby. So since my MIL vented to her daughter, she has not really being nice to my parents. We spend the holiday's together, Thanksgiving, x-mas and b-day together as a family but her wedding is on Dec 18th and my MIL, wants all of (including my parents) to go my SIL, inlaws house :O
Even though, I know my mom is completely mature and understanding about the whole situation. How can I take her to my SIL's, inlaws house where everyone will be talking about the wedding, that she wasn't invited to.. what do I do? how can I tell my MIL that it would be kinda of uncomfortable for my parents??
HELP!
Re: Christmas Eve
Honestly, if I were getting married, I don't think my siblings' in-laws are on the "Must-Invite" list. Let go of the fact that she wasn't invited to your sister-in-law's wedding.
Your mom is an adult - she can decide what situations to put herself in. Pose it to her like this, "We're going to a Chistmas Eve party at the in-laws, and there's an open invitation if you would like to come."
If she comes, great. If she doesn't, fine. And if MIl/SIL start sh!t about her not being there, your husband should step in and put an end to it.
Do your parents even know your SIL's in-laws? Why does your MIL want your parents to be there if she has a problem with your mom? And shouldn't the invitation to your parents come from SIL's in-laws, instead of your MIL?
I'm kind of confused about what's going on here, but in any case, your parents don't have to go. Your MIL should know that it's rude to invite someone to a wedding-related event when they haven't been invited to the actual wedding. Maybe she's just clueless about etiquette and manners, but whatever the reason, your parents can simply decline the invitation.
Wait... I thought this was in reference to a Christmas Eve party, not a wedding event? lol, now I'm confused.
Thanks for the input
My parents do know my SIL in-laws, but my MIL is making it sound like she is just including her in the plans. But only problem is that everyone that is going to my SIL in-laws were invited to the wedding, which will be the topic of conversation, I don't want my parents to feel left out. That's all.
Like I said my mom, can decline and not come, but then I don't want my MIL to get upset if we decide to spend X-mas eve with my parents and X-mas day with them.
I'm lost as to why there is any expectation that YOUR parents should be invited to your SIL's wedding. Your DH married into your family, NOT his sister.
So... that being an "issue" needs to be dropped.
Past that - if I were your parents, or even you or your DH, I wouldn't want to go to my SIL's IL's house for the holiday. That's a huge stretch, to be honest.
I think you and your DH need to figure out what the two of you want to do, then proceed from there. And if that means spending the evening w/ your parents at your house or theirs, that's fine.
Your DH's family can go do whatever they want- you all don't HAVE to join them.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
It's not a wedding event, it's more lile a x-mas party for everyone that was invited to the wedding. Since she is having alot of out of town family members, they want all the family to get together before they leave.
I don't have an issue with them not being invited. Like I said my parents are understanding abou this. I know that it's not my SIL obligation to invite them. My issue is the invite to my SIL in-laws house a week after the wedding,
I'm sorry, but I just don't see the problem here.
I knew my sister's ILs for around 10 years by the time I got married and never once considered inviting them to my wedding. Nor would my sister have expected me to. As for it being the topic of conversation on Xmas Eve, unless you know from past experience that every time your ILs get together that's all they talk about, I wouldn't assume that would be the case on Xmas Eve. Sure it will probably come up, but you'd think they'd get bored talking about absolutely *nothing* else all night. Even if they do, though, if you parents can't handle being in a room with people talking about an event to which they aren't invited, they should simply decline to attend. Honestly, it's no different to me than being around people talking about any issue I'm not a part of...family stuff, work situations, etc. I'm a SAHM but can manage to spend an evening with my working friends or DHs coworkers, who often talk about their jobs. Most adults I know are perfectly capable of commenting politely on things that don't involve them, then steering the conversation to other topics when appropriate.
There is nothing to "understand" when there is no expectation of being invited. Somewhere in this, you and your parents expected that they would be invited.
And yes, YOU at least do have some issue or you wouldn't be talking about them being excluded, or trying to make this into your MIL somehow being rude about inviting them to a holiday dinner where everyone but them was at the wedding.
If you feel this dinner won't be a good time for your parents because you think all the talk will be about the wedding, then don't go. Again, you don't have to go. I personally wouldn't really want to go to a party that will be all about an event I wasn't at. nothing wrong w/ that at all. I'm totally behind you on that.
And accept that yes, your MIL might be upset. You and DH are adults free to make whatever choice you want around the holidays. And MIL is allowed to be upset by that. You can't dictate or control her feelings.
But I get the impression you all do what she wants just to keep her happy. You need to break yourselves of this. If you don't think your parents won't enjoy this party, if you want to stay w/ them instead, then do it! You're adults. You can make this choice for yourselves.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
So you are upset that your parents are invited to a Christmas Party that just happens to be a week after the hosts wedding? You aren't upset about ehm being "excuded" from the wedding (which they had no reason to think they should be invited to) but you're upset that they aren't being excluded from this Christmas Party?
Really, you need to stop looking for drama where there isn't any.
Thank you for the advice
Not trying to look for drama more like avoid it. thankfully we have stayed drama-free and it's been kinda hard, we are not fighting with MIL or SIL.
But Thanks girls for all the advice.
I have to go with Karen on everything she said. Give your mom the option of attending the Christmas Eve celebration. If she's mature enough about the wedding situation I'm sure it'll be fine; she can look at photos and carry on with life. I have 120+ cousins and dind't invite them all to my wedding, but still attended the family reunion, showed them pictures and had a good time with them with no hard feelings on anyone's part.
Inviting your siblings' in laws isn't mandatory; it's dependent upon the level of closness you share with them. My BIL's parents & brother/GF are like family to us so I invited them to mine. However my H has 7 siblings and we only invited one sister's FIL and one brother's widowed MIL (because we're close to these people; they come around all the time). However, H's nephew's MIL and SIL apparently threw a fit becuse they weren't invited. I was like, "Who the F are they to us?? Just because their daughter/sister is married to your nephew and we're friends w/ them on FB, it does NOT grant them immediate invitation to our wedding!"
Even if your SIL had no issues with your mother, she was under no obligation to invite them.
I also highly doubt that people will only be talking about the wedding a week later. However, your mother would be well within her rights to decline to attend if she prefers to celebrate at home.
If the wedding is on the 18th, then why are they hosting a christmas/wedding party on christmas eve? This whole getting married in december, not inviting someone to the wedding but to the wedding event, making it longer than one day (because it is supposed to be just one day, two if you are in the wedding party) is really confusing me, and it is overdone. I would probably dislike someone that wanted their wedding to last longer than a fat guy at a buffet.
And solution: Neither of you go. Not your parents. Not you. If your H wants to go, let 'em, if not you four can catch dinner and movie, little fockers is a good one. My in-laws are so excited, we are seeing it Christmas day as a family.
Check us out
You seem to be putting a lot of energy into worrying about whether other people will be upset when really if they are upset they're being lame.
No one is obliged to invite anyone to their wedding, and certainly not your sibling's in-laws. So for your parents to be upset would be silly.
For your parents to attend a party and be upset because the other guests talk about another event they attended would be silly.
For your parents to go to an event where they expect to be bored/feel left out, and then be upset they chose to go is silly.
For your MIL to be upset with you if you and DH make a choice about how to spend your holidays is silly.
So there are a number of people here potentially being lame enough to be upset over silly things, or YOU are anticipating drama and upset where actually there isn't any, and even if there is, they are all adults who can sort it out themselves.
Why are you the keeper of everyone's happiness?
I think you have hard feelings about your parents being skipped from the wedding invite. You admitted it happened over sore feelings about your baby, so it's clearly eating at you. This stuff about people chatting about a wedding is just a smoke screen and way to prevent mixing the family after a stated slight. Your parents should not be expected to be invited to your SIL's wedding (and under normal circumstances should have no problem hearing about the big day). But if you were told they are not welcome because of some bigger issue, then it is not appropriate to mix them so soon after. After all, how can they be unwelcome for a wedding and then included for a holiday 7 day later? Clearly, you think your MIL wants to exlcude them from the wedding to make a point and then include them on Christmas to rope you into her prefered plans.
Of course, if you think she's playing games and running her own agenda you should split the holiday. And no, you don't expect her to "not get upset" because she's clearly demonstrated herself to be a major drama queen who's going to get upset. She's NOT going to be happy that you've done the perfectly reasonable thing and split time between families.
But own it. Be clear that this is YOUR call. Not some round-about way of protecting everyone else's feelings and agenda. You're allowed to be mad and react accordingly that your mother was wrongly accused, excluded and then given a back-handed invite to a holiday party as a means to control your attendance.
So your family and IL's used to be close, they spend all the holidays together (Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc...). I presume with SIL as well. Which means they do not have the same type of relationship as most families with IL's (i.e.: my parents have met my IL's twice... once at the rehearsal dinner and once at the wedding). So then you have a baby, MIL is mad that you're not going to her with questions (perfectly understandable) and starts saying crap about your mother to your SIL. Then SIL decides not to invite your parents to her wedding (normally that makes sense, but considering how they've been treated as family in the past it is odd... out of curiosity is MIL paying for the wedding), but they still want them to attend family related events.
Did I get it all right? I think your MIL is a brat, I think your SIL probably didn't invite your parents because MIL talked crap about them, but she's perfectly within her right to do so. Your parents know how your IL's feel about them now, and in fact the only reason they are probably inviting them to Christmas Eve and other family events is because they know that means they will get you and dh 100% of the time then. You need to start splitting the holidays... spend Christmas Eve with your IL's at their party (since it's important to them), and Christmas day with your family (and maybe stop by IL's for a few minutes in the evening). Do not subject your parents to time with people who dislike them just because MIL is using them as pawns to see dh and your kid more.
Also, stop telling MIL stuff. Don't tell her when you talk to your mom, what your mom says, etc...
Where is your dh in all of this?