I hate them too; I just tried to email dh and told him I was frustrated that his family didn't respect me as his wife (the other things I didn't get into from the weekend) they tracked dirt into my dining room white carpet after the gizillionth time saying we don't allow shoes in the house; they tried to go through my bedroom until I told them my bedroom was off limits (I shouldn't need to point that out) then they announced we were hosting Christmas breakfast and after telling them 3 times on 3 different dates we couldn't afford to participate in the 4 name drawings at Christmas at $20 a pop ($80 total) they entered us into 3 of them anyway... now thats names on top of my mom, dad, brother, sister, neice and grandfather; his mom, his dad, his sister, his 3 grandparents and 1 great grandparent; thats 3 more people to buy for. all they did was leave my name out of 1 of them. Plus they have been offering our fire wood supply to their family members.... for FREE!
My dh told me for his mental sake (like i said he's not feeling well; been diagnosed w/ panic disorder) I needed to stop worrying about this crap and stop being so negative...
I don't know how to handle this situation w/ getting him involved and me coming out as the monster.
I want to spend Christmas w/ dh but I shouldn't have to do it and choose to either see my family or his....

OMG I just emailed her myself! Wish me luck! I kept it nice; no pointing fingers....
merely stated we can't visit everyone on one day; we see all of his family and only 2 members of mine and said it wasn't fair and we needed to come to a compromise and dh was too stressed to deal with it right now.
I'll let you know how it goes.
I was nice; I read it 3 times before sending it.

did you mean to email her?

Sure did :o) If dh is too stressed to deal w/ it.... move over honey I'll do it myself.
I was nice; I just said something had to give; there were to many places to be and too many people to see for 1 day and we were so focused on everyone else being happy on Christmas day that we were unhappy, stressed and hated leaving the dogs at home.
I said the day was uneven in the amount of time spent w/ each side of the family and it wasn't fair to spend 8 hours or more w/ his family and 30 + minutes w/ mine and not even being able to see my grandfather, brother, sister or neice.

I don't think that everything should have to go through your DH. I hate when books and stuff say that. Its your house and your time so you should be able to speak about it. Good job putting your foot down - I just hope your MIL isn't like mine and will totally freak and not listen to a word you say and call up your DH and try to get him to say something different than you

Well I told dh that I emailed her and then I called her when she didn't respond. I talked to her for about 30 min. but I didn't get very far; she said that GMIL doesn't understand and neither does dh uncle and they don't see why we can't spend 1 day a year w/ her (one day; i see her more than I see my own grandfather) They want me to have breakfast w/ them, then go to GMIL then go to my parents then go to other GMIL end of story....
DH didn't like that at all and said I shouldn't have to give up all my family traditions and him have to keep all of his so he called her back up and said we were gonna do what we wanted to do on Christmas and that was final; he didn't care if anyone got mad at us and he didn't care what people thought about it; it was OUR Holiday too and we deserved to enjoy just as much as everyone else. He said he didn't see anyone going out of their way to come see us so why do we have to go out of our way to go see them.
Go dh!

YEA!!!! CONGRATULATIONS AND GO DH. that actually went real well. My SIL would have called up everyone to bitch how dare DH say that to her...bitch bitch bitch till it didnt end. HOLD STRONG GREATTTTTTTT STORY DH HAS TWO FAMILIES DEAL WITH IT!!!

I know I was so excited to hear him take my side :o) I have a niece who is having her first Christmas at my parents so I really wanted to watch her open presents this year and dh knew it was crushing me b/c it was "spend Christmas w/ dh and not see my family or see my family and not dh" now I get to do both :o)

Props to your DH!!!!!!

I'm so proud of him :o)