“Where is everyone going to be for thanksgiving?”
EDIT: thanks for the validation yall. I made this post to let off some steam bc i was ready to say “tough shit. Come or don’t.” The only reason I’m holding back on them is bc my kids have a great relationship with my parents (when they bother to show up) and with the loss of my in laws I don’t have the heart to not fight for my kids’ to have an ongoing relationship with their living grandparents. The situation sucks. Absent grandparents sucks. And mourning dead grandparents sucks the most. At the end of the day, it’s all about love.
After over a decade of renting we just moved into our new house (yay!) and we are so excited to experience our favorite holidays in our very own home with our toddlers. So I thought it would be obvious that we would be hosting this year starting with thanksgiving, but knowing the bs my parents pull when it comes to being inconvenienced, I thought it would be smart to settle on plans now.
Plot twist, they don’t want to travel for thanksgiving.
And I get it, the six hour drive sucks and staying over at someone else’s house isn’t pleasant. But I argue it’s a lot easier for two retired people to drive up and stay in a guest room than it is for a young family of four to drive down and sleep on couches and futons. Plus my husband has work that Friday so he would need to take off work, and he’s very low on PTO as is since the loss of my MIL earlier this year.
I explained this to them via text and was met with “we would really like the grandkids to spend time at grandma’s house for the holidays.” All I could do was let out the biggest sigh, I cannot wrap my head around how to more clearly tell them “no”.
For context, last year after they no-showed thanksgiving I got into a big fight with my parents because I felt they bend over backwards for other family members like my sister and their siblings rather than being there for their grandchildren, especially if it means they get to stay home.
This is an ongoing issue.
I’m just about ready to say “the kids will be spending the holidays in their new home. You are more than welcome to join us.” Because like… what else is there to say? Ugh I’m so annoyed. There’s a lot more nuance and nonsense involved with all this but that’s the basics for the rant lol
TLDR: parents once again refuse to travel to see their grandchildren for the holidays despite having good reason to do so