My family lives 400 miles away, my DH's family lives 250 miles away. My parents are pushing 70 and my DH's (divorced) parents are late 50's/early 60's. Before kids we used to go to my family early in November and then to his family for Thanksgiving. Then we'd do the same around Christmas. It's very important to his mom that we spend Christmas Day at her house with her. We drove 2300 miles over 4-5 weeks every year because we could.
We now have 2 kids, 16 months and 4.5, and it is no longer feasible that we travel like this. I have proposed we travel to his family's house for Thanksgiving and make it a combined Thanksgiving/Christmas visit. We will go to my family's house a week or so before Christmas and spend a few days there. I would like to be home at our own house for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
MIL is livid. We did this last year and while she wasn't happy about it, she did it. She never said another word about it since then so we made plans to do it again this year because it worked well for everyone, or so we thought.
Is it selfish of me to want to have my kids at home for Christmas Eve/Day? She wants us to drive to her house (250 miles) on Christmas Day. I don't want to spend Christmas Day in the car with 2 kids and a dog. My DD is a terrible traveler to boot. We told her she is welcome to come to our house if she'd like for Christmas, but she said we need to come "home". DH told her we will be "home" and she said there is only 1 home and it's not there. WTF??
She is very headstrong and has a lot of very strong opinions on things. (Bet that's a first here, huh? haha.) I am very laid back and go with the flow. I very rarely make a big issue about things but she & I have had our issues in the past.
How do I approach this without having a scorched earth mentality? She told my DH she didn't know why I made such a big deal out of going to see my family since my siblings never make an effort to come see me. WTF WOMAN. I feel very disrespected and upset but I do not want to fracture her relationship with her grandchildren, they love her to pieces and I can normally tolerate her proclivity for dramatics, but she is crossing some lines.