This is my third post about this 🙄 My mom insists on having Christmas <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glow.android.eve">Eve</a> dinner start late, as it’s ‘tradition’, even though I have an infant who goes to bed at 8pm. So we ‘compromised’ by starting dinner at 5pm. That means dessert and presents would be over at 9/10pm if I’m lucky. My baby has become a terrible sleeper and is up every hour, at least, and last night we went to dinner at my parents house and his sleep was even worse last night, I think because he was so over stimulated in the evening. He was up from midnight-3am as though it was the middle of the day. We need calm evenings to encourage him to rest.

I’m so exhausted I fell up the stairs while holding my baby. Thank god he was fine but this is torture. All day I’ve been trying to stay awake and be a good mom for him by reading, playing, etc.

So I don’t even want to do any holiday dinners this year. It’s not worth it to me to ruin Christmas Day just so my mom can have her tradition continue. She’s been very rude to me lately (though she denies it and says I’m the rude one) and I don’t feel like doing anything extra for her. But she spends so much time/money/effort on this holiday dinner that I feel awful canceling. I don’t think food has been ordered yet though. It gets weird because she buys my baby a ton of gifts and it’s like the unspoken agreement that in return I’ll be submissive and agree to her plans. Otherwise I’m called ungreatful, selfish, etc., by her and my dad.

Is it too late to cancel these plans? I already told her I’d go and just leave at 8pm. Last year I had to cancel Christmas Day dinner (I was 9 weeks pregnant and extremely sick but hadn’t announced it yet) and she ripped me a new one. Like horrifying things were said. My husband witnessed it so I know I wasn’t exaggerating.

I just need some help/advice ☹️