Our Family’s Christmas Gathering Has Taken a Weird Turn, and I Want Out

I’m a widow with two tween sons. My extended family lives on the opposite coast, and I don’t get much vacation time during the winter holidays, so visiting my family for the holidays isn’t a realistic option for us. My late husband’s brother and SIL are local, and they are lovely. They invite us over for Christmas Day every year, they seem happy to see us, and they have a gift for each of my sons. They always have a small group of friends over as well. The trouble is, these friends make me uncomfortable. Every year, I greet them, and I try to mingle, but they sort of look through us—they acknowledge me for one second if I say hello, but then it’s as if my kids and I were ghosts. If I don’t say hello, they don’t say anything to me, at all, all day, not one word, as if I weren’t there. No one is verbally rude, but it’s so awkward. I don’t mean that they won’t converse with me; that’s fine, I guess. But not even “Please pass the salt”—they’ll ask one of the other friends to pass it, even if it’s right in front of my kids or me. We have no bad history with them, no bad blood. It’s just always been this way, even when my husband was alive. As much as I like my BIL and SIL, I don’t want to attend this year, and neither do my kids. It feels really rude to decline when they know we have no other plans; but being home alone sounds great to me, and both my sons have said they want to stay home. What do you think? Is it ok to decline this year?

—The Ghost Relatives

https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/11/christmas-weirdness-care-and-feeding.html