'AITA for backing out of my dad’s Christmas party after his fiancée took my baby to meet Santa behind my back?' UPDATED
"AITA for backing out of my dad’s Christmas party after his fiancée took my baby to meet Santa behind my back?"
I live a 5 minute walk away from a mall, and they opened up their Christmas display a few days ago. My husband and I were planning on taking our son (who is 8 months old) there for his first Santa visit this past Saturday.
My dad’s fiancée is a very self-centered person. Most recently, she tried to post about my pregnancy on social media before I did and “confirmed” their wedding date (which has since been changed twice) at my sister’s birthday party. I’m not fond of her, but she’s not usually too hard to tolerate.
My immediate paternal family gets together for a small party every year on Christmas Eve. This time, my dad and his fiancée are hosting. I was going to attend it with my husband and our son.
Last Thursday, I had a business meeting while my husband was also at work. My dad and his fiancée came over to babysit. I spent some time chatting with them before leaving, and I mentioned our weekend plans, including how we were taking our baby to see Santa.
When I got home, my dad’s fiancée showed me pictures of herself with my baby and the mall Santa. I don’t even have pictures of just my son, she’s in all of them. She explained my dad had wanted to take a nap, so she took my son out on a stroll. She went to the mall, saw the Christmas display and “couldn’t resist” taking my son there herself.
Let me make this clear: I’m not too much of a Christmas person, and neither is my husband. But, she was well aware we were specifically looking forward to doing this with our son.
I’m also upset that my dad “napped” while babysitting, because we wouldn’t have had them watch our baby if we knew it would ultimately just be her. And I never gave either of them permission to remove my child from my place while babysitting.
I confronted her and said we wanted to take him ourselves, but she acted confused and claimed she didn’t realize it was such a big deal and just wanted to have some fun with the baby. My dad also dismissed my feelings and said I was being dramatic. I grabbed my son and told them to leave.
My husband was as upset as I was. We decided we wouldn’t attend the Christmas party anymore. We’ll figure out something else, but we don’t want to spend our baby’s first Christmas with her.
We made it official over the weekend. A lot of my family has replied that they’re not coming if I don’t, so now my dad is begging me to change my mind. There’s still over a month left before Christmas, and I want to sort this out as soon as possible. I don’t want to attend, but I also don’t want to ruin the party. AITA?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
I’d plan ur own little Christmas instead, make memories on your terms. let them sulk.
NTA - I think its very concerning that she took your young baby somewhere very public while your dad napped without your knowledge. But don’t stress too much about Santa (obvi she’s an AH for that too) but your kid wont remember at all. Just pretend this is the first time.
SantaVisitThrow (OP)
I know he won't remember it, but I don't think that matters much. We were really looking forward to it. That said, the fact she took him out of my place without permission to do something like that infuriates me.
Put her on a information diet. If you have to be around her in the future. Never tell her plans. Like Santa. Even small stuff like "oh I think child is so close to x milestone" If she asks on her own "oh do you plan to/is child doing x thing yet?" Downplay it, "oh I don't think we will go there" or "maybe with town" then its less exciting to steal the idea/moment.
SantaVisitThrow (OP)
I like that idea better than cutting ties or anything similar, but I'm also not leaving her or my dad alone with my child ever again.
She should have asked your permission to take your baby anywhere outside the house! She knew full well what she was doing. Was this to show off and post for her? I don't blame you.
What is there to sort out? If you don't want to go, don't go. Other people's actions/reactions are not your responsibility. A party you are not attending's success or failure is not in your power. Think about what you are saying here, does the earth revolve around you? Of course not, your father is just trying to guilt you.
NTA. You aren’t ruining their party by your absence. If relatives will tolerate your father and his GF only when you are present, that’s solely on your father. It’s unfortunate he’s picked this self-centered woman.
It’s very bad that he abandoned his family duty to watch his grandchild so he could nap while the intolerable watched your child and removed that child to parts unknown while he was so abandoning. Embrace the family that supports you. Keep you distance from the unreliable or worse folks.
Three weeks later, the OP returned with an update.
A little under two weeks after my first post, my husband and I took our baby to a different mall and visited Santa there. Their display wasn’t as big as the one from the mall near our place, but it was more colorful and they had a nicer tree. We explored the area with our son afterwards, and I came very close to tears watching the way he reacted to everything.
We also took the opportunity to get some Christmas shopping and charity stuff done. Overall, we had a wonderful day. It didn’t make either of us forget what happened, but I’ll cherish those memories forever.
In other news, out of the 15 people who had been invited to the party (not including my son), only 4 are still attending: two people from my paternal family and two from my dad’s fiancée’s (the only two she invited).
My relatives who didn’t back out of the party are my dad’s cousin, who is visiting from a different country and staying at his place, and my grandmother, who doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on.
I want to stress that getting my family members involved wasn’t my intention. I told both my cousins what happened because we plan Secret Santa for the party every year. That’s where the news spread from.
There was also a weird domino effect going on with different parts of the family (“I’m not coming, so neither are my parents” type stuff), which contributed to the amount of people who backed out.
Communication with my dad has been complicated. He’s blaming his fiancée for causing the problem, but also me for being “emotional” and ruining everything. The first time we tried to talk, he made a very offensive comment I couldn’t overlook, and then accused me of being dramatic over that too. Our second conversation was better, but still didn’t solve much.
I was ready to call it quits and accept we’d never agree on this, but my dad called me a few days ago with his fiancée. She didn’t really apologize. Instead she reiterated she just wanted to do something fun and didn’t think it would be a big deal, but didn’t mean to upset me.
Knowing her, I didn’t buy any of that. I told her there were numerous things she could have done that weren’t the one thing she knew I was already planning on doing with my child and didn’t require removing him from my place without permission. There was no way she hadn’t realized it was important to me, she just didn’t care.
She tried denying it at first, but she couldn’t give me a better explanation. After a few minutes, she started crying and said “you get to have special moments with this baby everyday, why can’t I have an hour?” That led to another small argument.
In the end, I told them I didn’t know what they thought would happen with that call. I’m not going to their Christmas party, and neither of them will ever babysit my son (or any other child I might have in the future) again.
My dad has since apologized (specifically for the phone call), but I don’t care anymore. I’m done losing hair over this. And I’m done being treated like my feelings, boundaries and authority as my child’s mother don’t matter.
I’m not cutting ties with my dad, but I’ll do whatever I can to make sure nothing like this happens again. And I like the “information diet” idea some of you suggested. I definitely feel no need to share any news about my son with my dad’s fiancée.
As for the Holidays: my eldest cousin is throwing a small party at her place on Christmas Eve, which mostly everyone who backed out of my dad’s party is attending.
On Christmas Day, we’ll visit my in-laws and then return home to relax with our baby and play video games. Next year, we’re traveling out of state to see my maternal family and go to the beach.
This has been a very chaotic month and I have no desire to waste more energy on this, so I probably won’t update again. I’m not 100% satisfied with how everything worked out, but I’m glad the situation’s been mostly dealt with. And this might actually be the most excited I’ve been about Christmas in a while. Thank you and happy Holidays!
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Why can’t she have an hour of special moments?
Because this is your baby!? I don’t think she’ll ever get it, OP.
SantaVisitThrow (OP)
My son is the first baby born in my paternal family in two decades, so I was always a bit worried things would get too overwhelming. Turns out most of my relatives are very respectful, but this isn't the first time I've had trouble with her and my dad over something related to my son.
And like I mentioned in my first post, she is extremely self-centered. Part of me almost believes she didn't mean to harm me, simply because I'm pretty sure she doesn't think about anyone else's feelings.
Good ending. Well, the best one you could realistically hope for. Your dad is (I’ll put this as kindly as I can) a daft idiot who still doesn’t seem to grasp what the issue is. His relationship with you has been damaged by this, and it’s had ramifications with his wider family too - but he’s still got his selfish, self-serving, manipulative and deceitful girlfriend so maybe he’ll chalk that up as a Win.