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Messages - Sweet Jane

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Holidays / Re: Hosting Christmas and the brother who always cancels last-minute
« on: September 27, 2018, 01:03:19 pm »
Lynn2000, there's no parental pressure - our parents passed away many years ago.

I think it comes down to my brother not wanting to make the drive to see me.  (And it's specifically the drive to see *me* because one of his best friends lives a couple miles from me and he has no problem coming up to see him multiple times per year. If I hear, "I was in your neighborhood but I just didn't have time to stop" one more time....)

There's a family dynamic at play:  growing up, my mom would always prioritize his desires over mine, so when dealing with the FOO he's used to always getting his way.  (Shortly before her death my mom apologized to me for favoring my brother but said that it was easy to say no to me because I'd just accept it, but when she said no to him he'd cry and be sullen and she wanted to avoid that.) Our family had always met near where brother lives because that's what he wanted and I was the first person to challenge that when DD was born and I decided I wanted her to spend the holiday at home instead of in the car.

(Brother has cancelled on other things - he was a no-show at my wedding, and when his wife volunteered to cohost my baby shower, she almost didn't come because he decided at the last minute that he didn't want to drive up and they only had one car at that time.)

I've never been one to demand that my siblings come up - one of them rarely does, but she's always been clear about it so I never have a problem.  But sometimes it feels like brother is trying to assert his dominance or something.

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Holidays / Hosting Christmas and the brother who always cancels last-minute
« on: September 26, 2018, 11:39:04 am »
I live a couple hours' drive from my brother and sisters. Until I got married, I would drive down to them for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year.  Once I got married, we started alternating Christmas between my family and my in-laws (who live a plane ride away). On years I spent Christmas with the in-laws, I'd drive down for a pre-Christmas celebration with my siblings.

Once my daughter was born, I decided that I wanted her to enjoy Christmas at home on the years that we don't go to the in-laws. (I'm the only one of my siblings with a child.) So I suggested, after many years of me doing all the driving, that the siblings could come up every other Christmas.  We still drive down for Thanksgiving every year, and we drive down for the pre-Christmas lunch on years I spend Christmas with my in-laws.

But for the past two times I hosted Christmas, brother canceled on Christmas morning.  One year he said he was too sick to get out of bed, the next time he said his wife was. But both times he ended up posting pictures on Facebook showing the two of them spending Christmas with their friends and not looking sick - one time he even hosted, and the meal looked pretty elaborate for a guy who woke up too sick to get out of bed.

I get it, they'd rather spend Christmas with their friends.  And if that's where they want to be, great! But I'd rather not go to the trouble of prepping the extra food if they're not going to be here (they have dietary restrictions that mean that I have to prepare an extra main dish for them as well as alter some of my favorite recipes so that they can have something to eat).

Is there a polite way I can tell them that if they want to get together for Christmas, we're open to driving down for a pre-Christmas lunch but that I do not want them to come on Christmas day?

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