Holiday not so fun

I feel like this is going to be a series, even though I hoped it wouldn't be. If you need to get caught up, go read this and this first.

The latest drama is this: my mother-in-law only bought four tickets to the Jim Brickman concert because my father-in-law is not going. Apparently my father-in-law didn't want to listen to a Jim Brickman CD so my mother-in-law decided he wouldn't appreciate the concert and therefore didn't buy him a ticket (or something like this - I'm getting this story third-hand so I'm a little fuzzy on the details). Now, as I mentioned, I believe my father-in-law would fall asleep a few songs into the concert, but in all fairness, he falls asleep at almost anything that happens after 7pm. In that way, it makes sense that he doesn't go with us to the concert.

Unfortunately, this isn't just about attending a concert. This is our Christmas present and part of our Christmas celebration. The reason we no longer do traditional gift-giving is so that we can spend time together, building memories as a family, and we supposedly all approve of the activity before plans are made. The decision to choose something that a) my father-in-law doesn't want to do and/or b) excludes a member of the family is the exact opposite of what we're trying to accomplish with these outings. Somehow the element of quality family time keeps getting lost in the planning.

When I heard this latest wrinkle in our holiday fun, I rolled my eyes and sighed. There's nothing I can do about it, and I'm not going to try. My husband is upset, and he's going to talk directly to his parents about this new situation, but I am going to stay out of it as much as possible. I know this isn't about Christmas anymore.