I managed to hold my tongue all day and what am I getting for my pains? TWO members of my husband's family have invited themselves to stay with us for the weekend. May I complain now? Oh ... I guess I just did.
Ok, that's hilarious! I shouldn't laugh, but I can see how being nothing but kind and sunshiney would lead to this. And my MIL is staying with us until 12/15, so feel free to stop buy with a little snark!
It was my mother's turn to host this holiday, and all she did was complain. She is 72 and in excellent health, but said she wouldn't be able to take a turn in the future. We had told her to just make one thing, and we would bring everything else...but she fixed 6 or 7 additional sides. We put all of the food up and cleaned the dishes. She told us the turkey was heavy and hard to carve, and that she was just getting too old. I told her we'll take her out of the rotation when she's 80. Now, I'm feeling guilty. Should we tell she's off the hook? The truth is she stresses herself out trying to make everything perfect. We even came up with a new plan...whoever hosts doesn't have to provide any of the food, just the location.
There's no reason to feel guilty. The main reason to leave your mother out of the rotation is if it really just wasn't any fun at her house. Your new plan is awesome--it'll be interesting to see if she finds new things to complain about. It sounds like she's got perfectionist tendencies, which is unfortunate because perfectionists can suck the joy out of just about anything if left to their own devices (I've done a lot of work on this because I have perfectionist tendencies). It's actually quite sad that, at 72, she hasn't figured out that Thanksgiving is about family and getting together and enjoying a meal and each other.
I host Thanksgiving every year and I love it, because I don't have to go anywhere. And my family is awesome--I just open my doors--that's about all the effort I have to put into anything. I honestly don't even have to clean (generally do, if nothing more than a spit polish). My sister brings most of the food (she loves to cook, I don't).
I think we have the same MIL. ;) Mine has been up for Thanksgiving week, and, while I am not exactly a paragon of sunny optimism, I am not even sure how she can survive with such an unrelentingly negative outlook on life. It makes me want to check my own negativity, for sure, lest I end up like that.
I could have written those exact words. Listening to my MIL is making me wonder if, god forbid, I'm like that. (I don't think I am, but I could be headed in that direction). She literally gasps and moans throughout the day, about the cold, her creaky bones (she's 71). And she's so melodramatic, I can't tell you how many times things have "broken her heart" or she was "terrified" or "nearly died" (in any given day, multiple times).
It's an interesting world view, and it must be exhausting. On Thanksgiving, we were having reception problems with the downstairs TV, so my dad had to watched his football game on the upstairs TV. MIL sidled up to me and said, "I hope this doesn't ruin DH's Thanksgiving." I said, "Why would it? It's just a TV" (and DH wasn't even going to watch is; he was just getting it set up for my dad). She said, "He seems
really upset." I just looked at her...DH was mildly annoyed and got over it immediately. It made me realize that she's got a really distorted/exaggerated perception of emotions, especially negative ones. Quite sad, really (but also annoying to be around).
