A little back story... So my husband has been away in Afghanistan until last week and it was hit and miss whether he'd be home for Christmas so arranging the whole holiday has been hard as it is.

Normally we take it in turns with whose family we see Christmas day vs boxing day and it was his dad's turn for Xmas day this year but UK rules changed recently so now if we want to see both his dad and my parents, we have to see both on Christmas day.

We agreed that we'd see his dad (45 mins drive from ours) until about 2.30 then drive back to my parents (5 mins drive from ours) and spend the rest of the day there. I'm 36 weeks pregnant, happy to drive back so hubby can have a couple of beers but said I'd rather that way round so I don't have a long drive later in the day when I'm tired.

Here's where it gets awkward! So his dad was originally having his little sister over too but her mum got covid so she now has to isolate. My father in law assumed then that we'd just spend the whole day and evening with him because he'd be alone otherwise. My husband explained my reasoning and said he's more than welcome to come to us instead then drive home in the evening but apparently that's not good enough. My father in law is now saying he's going to go and see his daughter Christmas morning then go to the pub for the afternoon so we can just pop in for a cuppa tea if we want before he goes to the pub, hubby obviously said if his dad does that then we can't risk seeing him. His response was 'Do what you gotta do.'

I'm so angry that he's tried to guilt trip my husband because he's not doing exactly what he wants. I get that in a normal year we'd spend the day at his but it's not a normal year. I feel like my fil expected my husband to put him first and is now being spiteful because he put me and our baby first.

I'm so proud of my husband for sticking to his guns, none of this has been easy for either of us and has put a strain on us but we've worked through it. We looked at all the options, considered staying in and having Christmas just us 2 but came to this decision together because it meant we could both see our families and being at my family's later means that when I get tired we can just drive straight home. For my fil to be so hurtful to his son feels so unfair.

I'm getting some yummy breakfast food in and we'll have a chilled, cosy Christmas morning instead if his dad does go and see his sister.