Christmas crashers ponder this year's exclusion
Dear Amy: My husband and I live five hours away from our first grandchild. We see him several times a year and have a good relationship with our son and his wife.
Our daughter-in-law's parents have a lovely home five minutes from the young couple's apartment.
Last Christmas we basically "crashed" her parents' Christmas mid-day dinner -- our son had given this his OK, but we now realize that was wrong.
Our son even had it out with his mother-in-law last year over this. She responded, "Christmas morning is just for family." In retrospect, we probably shouldn't have made the trip at all, but it was the baby's first Christmas.
So, it is obvious that these people don't think of us as "family," and her parents have failed to invite us to their home -- for any length of time -- this Christmas when we visit. We always thought we got along just fine with them; we're generous with what we bring and we always offer to help.
We're not sure what, if anything, we're doing wrong. Are we wrong in thinking the other mother-in-law is just rude and unmannered?
We couldn't imagine shutting out the other grandparents, especially if they had travelled so far.
-- Unmerry Christmas
Dear Unmerry: You have already admitted that "crashing" this other couple's home on Christmas morning was a mistake and that you regretted doing it. Have you admitted this to these in-laws and apologized, in addition to thanking them for hosting you on that morning?
It seems as if you are leaving the communication here to your son, and ... he's not doing a good job.
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