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Anyone else with a Grandmother in Law who Monopolizes holidays?
My DH's grandmother monopolizes --no joke-- every single holiday. Anyone else in the boat with a holiday monpolizer? How do you deal? What do you do when you want to start your own traditions at your own house?
She has the "main event" dinner for every single holiday from memorial day to thanksgiving to the 4th of July to Christmas. We all do "brunch" at our own houses, and then she has everyone over there at 4:00pm on the holiday, and usually everyone stays for about 6 hours. It drives me nuts that we're going to be causing major strain on the family when we might want to, for example, do Christmas breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner and dessert... in OUR OWN HOME with our family one day. Because my (otherwise awesome) MIL has it all played out in her head that "this is how things go" once the grandma passes away eventually, she will carry the torch of "everyone" always coming to her house for everything. Sorry. Not going down like that.
Re: Anyone else with a Grandmother in Law who Monopolizes holidays?
No. Between the two of us we have one living grand parent left (my Grandmother) who is in a nursing home in MO.
My advice: you and your husband get yourselves on the same page about this stuff now and come up with some strategies to deal with the guilt trips etc...that will surely come from a woman who feels entitled to monopolize every single holiday like that. Does the entire family really attend all of these gatherings? Do they not have spouses who would like to spend the holidays with their own families? Talk about traditions you would like to start once you start your own family.
Nobody can make you do things you don't want to do. Don't stay for the whole time if you don't want to.
To follow on Boston- what do the other married people in the family do? Do they all really go to her house every year, or do they actually do stuff w/ themselves or w/ the other side of their family?
Take a step back and really figure out if you and DH will really be the first to rock the boat.
Past that, as said, you and DH need to get on the same page and have a plan. If you all really are the first to go against the grain, just steel yourselves for it. You have to be on the same page and firm and confident in your plans.
"We know you're sad we won't be there, but this is what we're doing this year" and STICK TO IT.
Don't "explain" things to them- that only gives them the window to interject their opinions. The less you say, the less they can argue.
And honestly, the next time your MIL talks about carrying the torch, maybe your DH can use that as an opportunity to kind of put it in her mind that you all won't be taking part. "Yeah, this is a great tradition, but just realize that we're going to be starting our own traditions.".
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
No; neither one of us have any grandparents left, and as of February my mom is the only parent left for both DH and me.
My mom does host all holiday dinners but that's because their house is big and can comfortably fit a lot of people. However she is totally understanding and supportive of the fact that we still have DH's 6 brothers and sisters and their families to spend holiday time with.
Since my dad passed away 2 months ago, we've slowly begun to adopt some new traditions and I think my mom would be fine with changing things up, especially if it meant us hosting at our house with my family and DH's side.
you and your DH have to decide which ones you will attend and which ones you wont. Then stick to the plan.
Rock the boat- those are the exact words we've been using. The situation is this: The grandparents had three children, two married spouses who are from out of state, one married a spouse who is estranged from their family, so that generation never had qualms about always getting together at her house. Then, we were the third of "the cousins" to get married; the first one married a girl from another country... and the second married a boy who's family lives out in the country, several hours away. It's made worse by the way that my two younger borthers in law are both in school, out of state, so there's additional pressure/guilt tripping of "A and B would do anything to be here on christmas morning and spend the day with the family, and you're 4 miles down the road, why would you ever want to stay home?" And of course we're not just staying home.. we're newlyweds in our first hour for the first time and want to start our own try at christmas morning as husband and wife, and you're more than welcome to come over to see us, but we're going to be celebrating christmas morning at home... blah blah blah, etc...
We tried the December the 23rd 9:00pm (earliest we could meet that day) conversation with the in laws on "why we're staying home on Christmas morning, and see you at the big get together..." and yeah.. I go with what everyone here says now of sticking to a 1-liner of "we're not coming, we love you, we'll see you soon"
Ah, so you kind of are the first. A couple of thoughts.
I actually wonder if your DH just needs to give his mom a "heads up" conversation. As you are the first, it really may not cross their minds that you all (or anyone, for that matter) might actually want to do something different.
I think it might help everything if your DH can just say, the next time any conflict comes up, "You know mom, I know this is how our family has done it for years. And it's kind of worked out that we've all been able to be together. While it's been nice, now that I'm married and I'm married to someone who also have family locally - we're not going to always be able to take part in our familys' traditions. It makes me sad too, but this is the new reality. I really hope you'll support us, though, by understanding our situation.".
Past that, all I can say is decide between the two of you what you want to do and then just say "Sorry, we can't make it" or "We'll be there from __ to ___".
If you are going to see your mom, then sure, your DH should say that. "Sorry, we can't make it. We'll be with Gwen's family.".
But I wouldn't go much past that. I wouldn't go into the "we're newlywed's" bit, or "We went to start our own traditions" because you start opening the door for them to argue w/ you why (for example) if you don't have kids, you don't need to do your own traditions, or how you only need the morning together, but the rest of the day should be w/ them, etc.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Good thoughts!!!!!!! I'm going to have him check out what you wrote before that to help him prep for whenever it comes up next, because he's as tongue-tied as I am when his parents question us directly about why we "don't want to spend time with them at the holidays"
They just phrase questions in ways that require a guilt-trip style answer, just yesterday, we were all video skyping with my BIL and fiance out in California, my FIL said, after we had been talking for about 30 minutes "Well, this has been nice to see you two" (like we could finally wrap the conversation up since they had to get to an afternoon rehearsal) and then he added "I mean, you guys want to get off the phone now, or are you having fun?" .....???..... how is anyone supposed to answer that? My future-SIL looked really dumbstruck by the question, as my BIL did, and I just said "I think they have rehearsal... It was so nice to catch up with you guys, we love you!" and that provided everyone an out...
A couple ways you could deal with this (and when I say "you", more often it's better than this be your DH....):
1- turn it back on them. "Mom, you know that's not the case. I wish you would respect that we're busy and not guilt us over it.".
or
2- just blow it off "Mom, you know that's not the case. Anyhow (then change the topic.... maybe to when you will see them again, or just end the conversation - "I need to run now. Talk to you on Monday!" - etc)
But DON'T get caught up into trying to PROVE to them that you do want to see them, but just not on this particular day, because (again) it opens doors for them to argue.
This is perfect and it's really what you need to do - ignore the comment/question when you can! My IL's throw out guilt inducing comments all the time. We literally ignore them and move on to something else.~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10