Man says it's 'crazy' for wife to skip Christmas over mom's baking tradition. AITA? Updated.

Every family has holiday traditions. For instance, actor Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos, The White Lotus, etc.) recently said in an interview that he and his father would watch 'Midnight Cowboy' every Christmas eve (yikes). In this post a man is complaining about his wife's reaction to his mother's Christmas tradition. Here's his story..

Context: For every holiday, My mother would ask the women in the family (my sisters, sister in-law, my wife, my female cousins) to send 'samples' of the desserts they plan to bring to the celebration for testing and to see if these desserts could make it to the 'food menu'.

My wife has been complaining about my mother deliberately rejecting every dessert sample she sent. So many times my mother has told her that she's being honest and keeping the guests best interest at heart. Yet my wife still thought that my mother is deliberately excluding her since 2 of her dessert samples were rejected before.

For this year's Christmas my mother is doing the same thing but this time, she told every woman who is participating to make a 'cookie sample' and send it to her for testing. My wife took it as a challenge and to be honest she worked really hard to make a good sample and sent it to my mother days ago and the results just came in yesterday.

I came home from work and found my wife upset. I asked what's wrong and she told me that my mother rejected the sample she sent and decided to exclude her baking from the food list/menu for Christmas this year. I didn't know what to say but she then told me she was backing out of the invitation to attend Christmas with my family.

I was stunned when I heard her make this statement. I tried to talk to her but she said 'it was done.' I called her unreasonable to decide to bail on the whole family over some cookie sample...that's just freaking crazy and quite unreasonable.

We had a full on argument about it and she stated that my mother caused this but I told her that my mother is pretty serious and careful about the food she offers to the guests since we are going to have relatives coming from all sides of country. She told me to stop mentioning it.

Later I heard her cry despite telling her that her baking is amazing and people have preferences that's all. AITA for insisting that her decision was unreasonable?

Info from OP:

If you're asking whose cookie sample made it to the menu, the answer is my sister and my 2 cousins.

My wife wasn't the only one whose sample was rejected. We have SIL's (brother's wife) and my younger sister's.

My mother did not force anyone to participate, it was up to whoever wanted to take part.

This is just about the dessert since my mother tends to be very careful in this category but for other types of foods. Dishes/appetizers/salads/stuff like that is welcome as she stated.

Here's what people are saying in the comments:

ZealousidealWin8128 writes:

So, correct me I'm wrong, but for years and years your mother has demanded that all the women (why not men too?) in your family send in samples.

For years and years your wife has tried her hardest to appease your mother, had pushed herself to the limit, and has been left completely and utterly demoralised each and every time by a humiliating tradition enforced by the holiday tyrant.

And, even worse, her shame was publicly put on display each and every year as other family members would no doubt notice that, once again, her food was not chosen.

Finally, after producing something she was unbelievably proud of, she was once again left embarrassed and most likely deeply hurt as she was deemed not good enough for yet another year.

This is the straw that broke the camel's back and she decides she has had enough of her humiliation and that she will not give her cruel MIL the satisfaction of seeing her discomfort on such a big day. She makes a boundary that many would have made a long time prior.

And her husband tells her she is unreasonable for setting up boundaries? Dude. Come on. You know YTA.

Background-Ad8636 writes:

YTA. Your mom is also an AH who takes samples in and makes others feel bad because of their cooking. This tradition sucks and I get why OP's wife doesn't want to go.

ItsSublimeTime writes:

YTA. Why haven't you defended your wife's baking to your mom? You are choosing your mother over your own wife. Step up and tell your mom that you don't appreciate the constant insulting of your wife - and accept that if she doesn't feel comfortable going to Christmas at her house, that she has every right not to. And you should be supporting her decision.

user119975444 OP responded:

Okay, I'll defend my wife and tell my mother that she's being a bit harsh on her and unfair towards her baking skills but that's it. I still can't really force my mother to include my wife's baking in the menu, I just don't get to make this call you know what I'm saying?

Update from OP:

Great!, so I just got off the phone with my brother and he told me that his wife is doing the same thing as my wife and that she has decided to back out of the invitation to spend Christmas with family as well.

Turns out my wife must've told her about her decision and she decided to follow her lead. My brother is pissed saying my wife is encouraging his wife to do this. I see that the problem has just gotten bigger now. Who knows, my younger sister might join in and decide not to go as well.

I don't know how this got out of control so quickly. I guess we'll try to have a discussion with my mother about this soon and see how it goes.