AITA for telling my family to knock it off or I would leave the restaurant, and they would have to cover their own Christmas dinner?
TLDR is kind of the title.
I (43F), personally, don’t think I’m the AH here, and my son (9M) and husband (45M) don’t think I am, but my extended family and mother (77F) think I was out of line, so here goes:
For Christmas dinner this year, my family decided to have one big get-together with some of the extended family at a restaurant rather than some big get-together at my home since my health has decided to take a turn (I just got out of the hospital for kidney stones about a week ago and some of my labs came back abnormal; for those wondering, I’m not quite three years cancer-free, so there is constantly concern the cancer will return). My husband offered to pay for everyone (we can afford it, that’s not the issue, and it was supposed to make Christmas easier on us by this being our gift to them). He was also going to meet us at the restaurant after he got off work (we were at the restaurant at 2:30, he gets off work at 3:00), so he wasn’t there for most of what happened.
My SIL (47F) offered to give my mom, son, and myself a ride since I just got out of the hospital and am still on and off pain meds (kidney stones are no joke, I will never make fun of anyone about them ever again). My SIL picked my son and I up first, then my mother. My mother was cordial and almost on her best behavior. There were some passive aggressive comments about my hair, but I let them slide and advised my son to mostly let it go. I made a post at the beginning of the year about my mother, and yes, this is typical behavior for her. To put it mildly, there is a reason she has been on an information diet for the past several months, she is still not allowed in my home, and she has not tried to change or be better.
When we got to the restaurant, the first thing to happen was my aunt was already at the restaurant trying to correct the hostess on how many people would be there. I had reserved seating for up to 25 people, but my aunt was trying to correct the hostess and have her change it to 12 people. We had 18 total. I reminded my aunt that she did that last year and the restaurant had to scramble at the last minute to find seating because the hostess wrote her number down instead of mine (that’s a whole story in itself, but I had warned the restaurant about her this year because it would be the third time she has done this). To the hostess’ credit, she kept pointing out my aunt didn’t make the reservation and they had to go by the original number on the reservation.
Around this time, another aunt had started in about what I was wearing and what my son was wearing (we were dressed for the cold, not entirely sure what she was on about). My son didn’t want to give her a hug, so she started lecturing him about giving family members hugs, even after I reminded her that my husband and I don’t demand our son hug people, whether he knows them or not, because they are not owed hugs from my child.
This is when my mother started in. She started going on about how I was being rude and cranky. People are just trying to help, my son is being a spoiled little brat because a hug never hurt anyone, and how we could have tried dressing a little nicer. I felt cornered, frustrated, protective of my child, and just snapped.
I told them all that if they didn’t knock it off right now, I would Uber my son and I home and they could all pay for their own Christmas dinner. There was absolute silence. The hostess even looked shocked (although later she told me she didn’t blame me and made a comment about how I put up with these people). My SIL stepped in, at that point, and offered us a ride home unless everyone had decided they’d behave (my brother and I aren’t always on speaking terms, but my SIL is literally his saving grace). There were just nods and the hostess then told us she could start seating us if we’d like.
We were seated and everyone was mostly quiet, with a few odd looks my way every now and then. Even my mother was careful about her comments. My husband came in about 10 minutes later and apologized for being late because of work. The only thing said was when my son made a comment to my husband about using Uber and my husband gave me a weird look.
Now I have an aunt, my mother, and a couple of cousins messaging my husband (my extended family is really passive aggressive like this) claiming I made Christmas dinner awkward by holding money over their heads and demanding they tiptoe around my “feelings.” My husband has (so far) responded that they made the dinner awkward by pushing me to that point, and he was being very generous by paying for everyone and he wouldn’t have done that if I had left.
I don’t know. I feel bad that I said something in frustration when I probably could have handled it better. Blaming frustration only goes so far and I know that. My SIL has only messaged me that she hopes I’m feeling better, and my husband keeps telling me he would have done the same thing in my shoes, and that they know they were out of line because they stopped their behavior and comments after I said something. I guess I just need validation. Reddit, AITA?
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