2008-11-24

Ok, so did I mention here, that my stepfather sent my brother and I mom and his Christmas wish list and an e-mail that I thought both rambly and guilt inducing? I sent it and my MAD rsponse to My BFF jenn, who really should be getting paid to listen to me whine. She thought it sounded sad as much as anything. Well, I decided not to respond. As I told husband last night, I'm still working on the "happy medium", because I saw two choices: fight or flight. I wrote out the fight part, then actually acted on the flight part. Instead I should have sent some variation of the response husband wrote.

Anyway, my brother actually responded (although not in reply all fashion) and said--Ok, we'll be at your house Dec 20th. So my mom is all gleeful on Sunday when she calls me because it's all decided! Except, well, it isn't. Husband told me back in January, that he wasn't driving the 500 miles to my mom's house a Christmas. My stepfather announced back then that they weren't going anywhere because they would not have any vacation left. Except, well, they didn't actually say, except we'll drive the 5 hours to spend 2 days with my stepfather's parents, who live 40 minutes away from my brother.
So anyway, why on earth if they thought we were willing to drive all the way to my moms did they think I was offering back in OCTOBER that we should a) find a nice bed and breakfast type place midway to meet at or b) have the family gathering at my brothers? Was no one listening when I said we were NOT driving to mom's? No apparently not.

So guess what? I got to be the bad guy. I got to make my mother cry because I got to say--well, we aren't driving to your house and it would have been nice if someone would have said something to me first before making our plans. Yes, my mother cried. Then she said--well, it's just that pop and I are feeling really frustrated by all this and I sort of lost it a little and said very icily that I was quite aware of what pop was feeling, he made that very clear thank you. THEN my mother said, well no one came here last year. I swear to GOD I felt thirteen all over again and had to take a huge breath so I didn't hang up on her right then and !@#$ there. Not only did we go there last year, we did even though my brother and his family couldn't AND I spent the entire time trying to explain to A and E why they could not open the hundreds of presents under their tree. So I was a little mad that she didn't remember it. No, we didn't have the big present extravaganza at their house, instead we had the family time, and while I thought it was a nice visit, I guess it wasn't a very memorable one for my mom. Oh did that make me mad.

So anyway, I left it with my mom that I'd talk to my brother. Although I had no intention of calling him, because I asked if we could do Christmas at their house two weeks ago, letting him pick the time basically and he had not called me back with an answer and then unilaterally decided leaving me to be the bad guy (I'm not bitter, why do you ask?). I did end up talking to my brother (he did call), and he seemed surprised that I had no intention of driving to mom's a Christmas time. (IS NO ONE LISTENING TO ME) anyway, we decided that perhaps a conference call is in order, because clearly we all need to talk together.

I've only asked for one thing--that we do not drive the two days to get to my mom's. Well maybe two, I don't really want to have Christmas day on the road, but I'm willing to negotiate that this one year.

I was looking at my archives and realized that last year I was much farther ahead than I am now. Perhaps I should start my Christmas shopping.

The last few entries I've said I don't need advice, but now, I'll say this: if anyone out there has any advice for keeping calm in the face of their mothers bursting into tears and delivering honest tough news to said weepy mother, please please please let me know.

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