My sisters take on it:

It’s All About.
,
,
The Baby Cheeses…

Food for thought Edukator.

I quite liked my inlaws. Up until 17th October when we announced we’d got wed. Her stepmother stormed out and hasn’t spoken since. OH has been ostracized no comms with her father. The stepmother blanks all attempts to reconcile and her father is retry much too weak willed to sort it. He was also diagnosed with cancer so there’s another strain.

So plus side no inlaws this Christmas on the down side OHs father hasn’t had the strength to call.

Where do I start?…weirdest Christmas yet. Mil arrived on Tuesday. 87,slightly batty with a mania for eating at the local farm shop. That can be controlled, as the kids and Mrs Scape have taken it in turns to take her out for lunch, but the traditional trip to the panto was a bit of an endurance test. The tickets were for the circle, and the foyer was busy, and she wanted my daughter to go and buy sweets, and, and, and,and…. When I suggested we could all calm down, get Nanna seated and then sort out the maltesers away from the whirlpool of panic that we were rapidly descending into you would have thought I had teamed up with Krampus to ruin the day.

Next, the new puppy is in a biting phase, and needs a firm hand to get the better of her. Experience tells me she needs to be either distracted, or if she gets too rough to be disciplined with a mother dog style pin and growl,whereupon she calms right down. Mil can’t understand that the dog must learn its place in the pecking order, and so when it wants to play there’s a great palaver of shrieking and flapping,which of course just winds the dog into a frenzy.
Christmas day has to be forced. She thinks she has to drive it all, and can’t understand that sitting her down out of the kitchen so Mrs Scape can concentrate isn’t shunning her. She announced that she only bothers coming because she’s expected to open her purse and help with the costs, which has gone down well.
Got all upset when I suggested she could sit nearer the TV rather than watching strictly come **** nonsense at a volume which I was afraid would ruin the soundbar from twenty feet away across the lounge.
My brother has learning difficulties and is an early riser, so we’ve just had a latte whilst watching a recorded carol service he was looking forward to. Peace at last. Until mil came in, described her piles in great detail, got bitten by the dog and is now snoring at full volume.

Ok its been lovely now please just **** OFF!

Scapegoat wins the thread. Or at least an award in the many categories.

MIL has spent Christmas at her house in Oxford after being told by us not to travel to us, for many complicated reasons but can be summed up by her being a massive **** acting in a **** manner. 300 miles away and still too close for my liking. I can confidently say that I will not need to contribute to this thread next year though as there is no chance at all of her ever being invited again. Happy days.

I get on fine with mine, but then we see them regularly as they live 10 minutes walk away now – so they just come and visit rather than stay with us or anything silly like that (though when they lived further away they always used to stay in a hotel or b&b if they stayed for more than a day). They came yesterday afternoon, left at kids’ bedtime, joined in and were generally pleasant. Not sure why some people have to be unpleasant – though I guess it helps that they’re not at all right wing like some appear to be.

Mum and Dad came to see us for Christmas, first time they have ever come overseas to see us. Mrs Q adores them, and they got to meet my MIL who is pretty unwell with leaukemia.

A nice two weeks with them, a few moments of stress, but overall well worth the effort. MIL is happy she got to meet them, MrsQ is over the moon having spent time with them again, and they are over the moon to have met MIL, spent time with Little Q and MrsQ.

A fairly positive MIL/Parents story for Christmas.

FiL has just had us in stitches as he managed to fart for at least 5 seconds continuously while bending down lighting the woodburner!

A risk taker. I like it. I’m another one fortunate enough to have great inlaws, who this year have looked after our kids and dogs so we could go on holiday together, provided a lovely Christmas Eve and morning, then kept the dogs for another day while we all went to my brothers inlaws, who are also lovely, for Christmas lunch/evening and Boxing Day. The ‘worst’ person in my extended family is one of my sister-in-laws, who has remained at home in Portugal this year, and while her main crime is thinking that the world revolves around her and her lovely but undisciplined children, she is not at all nasty and is still quite good company, and is just oblivious to others rather than deliberately selfish. On balance I have quite a decent crowd.

THEY HAVE GONE, PRAISE THE LORD!

I feel for you all!

We stayed at my parents overnight on Chrristmas day (thay doesn’t really make sense…), so it’s Mr Mule who has to tolerate the in-laws. Fortunately he loves them as much as I do.

There was a very touching moment this year when Mr Mule (who has disowned his own father – for good reasons), had a few drinks, forgot himself, and started calling Mr Mule Senior “Dad” – totally spontaneously.

I nearly shed a tear 🙂

Not long back from driving the inlaws home.
That’s a 320mile round trip(I drove them over here last week) and I would do it all again in a heartbeat,they are amazing.

If you have the good ones,hold them close.
I love them like my own,Iam very lucky.

MiL is great and i have a lot of time for her…..shes a lovely woman.

FiL on the other hand is a pretentious, snobbish bore with nothing to back it up with. He’s not a very nice man and he knows that i know it. Plus, just to add insult to injury he’s the sort of fella who ALWAYS disappears as soon as there is ANY work to be done. We don’t like each other, its obvious, but i aint arsed!

Still he provides me with hours of entertainment with his bull5hit and hot air.

I didn’t used to understand the in-law troubles until my sister remarried. And what a vile, nasty bore he is. My sister’s great, as are her kids from a previous husband. I just do not know what she she’s in hin and he makes every family meeting an absolute chore while managing to quietly go about offending everyone. If I never saw him again I’d be quite happy. No, very happy.

Slow burner this one, but finally exploded this morning, after comments received on Christmas Day resulted in the ‘least hospitable Christmas since I was divorced, my brother died and (can’t remember the final insult)’. So apparently my SDIL 2 hr rant about Muslims and ‘foreigners’ on Christmas Day was fine, as he is from an older generation. After the nonsense he spoke on Christmas Day (in front of a table with children from 5-15), I will not be speaking to him again, but hope the MIL can come around as she’s actually ok (in small doses).

My MIL came round Boxing day , so went out on the bike for a few hours. Not that I have a issue with the MIL, just was bike time. FIL lives in Sunderland, so that’s good too. Its more my current wife and her MIL that’s the issue. Still that was only a half day and back to normal. Oh and back out on the bike again and again. Loving the mild weather , although a bogfest locally.