Imagine having a tradition of how you usually celebrate the holidays.

If your mother-in-law wanted you to start a new tradition of visiting her for the holidays, would you do it even if it was really inconvenient, or would you invite her to visit you instead?

In this story, one woman is dealing with this dilemma. She doesn’t want to visit her mother-in-law for the holidays, but she also feels guilty about saying no.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for refusing to travel to my in-law for the holidays because it would leave my small family and widowed mother alone

My husband parents moved down south this year to be closer to his mom’s parents. All my husband siblings still live up here.

My dad passed away 5 years ago so I took over cooking for the holidays.

Now our family holidays are super small just 6 adults and maybe 2 kids depending on my cousins custody schedule but they are still very meaningful for me since so much of my family is gone.

My mom is a widow and I worry about her being alone for the holidays.

Visiting the MIL for the holidays really wouldn’t work for them.

Meanwhile MIL keeps telling us there will be about 20 people at her house for the holidays this year. She’s been pushing for us to come down and start that as our holiday tradition.

My husband only gets off work the actual day of the holiday. He works the day before and after thanksgiving and also works Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas so it would be vacation days for him to use.

We tried explaining to mil that if we leave for the holidays my family gatherings are down to 4 people and maybe the kids. I’m also the one who does all the cooking so I feel like I will be leaving them with nothing.

We told her she is more then Welcome to come up here and we could host everyone for the holidays but traveling to the south just isn’t going to work for us.

Her MIL is upset.

She did not take this well and has been making comment that we are selfish and need to make sacrifices.

Husband doesn’t want to waste the vacation days and make the long trip down there then to have to either sleep on an air mattress or spend money on a hotel.

But MIL has me feeling so guilty.

The holidays are hard enough with most of my family being gone I don’t need the guilt on top of it.

Maybe her MIL is the one who is selfish. It simply won’t work for them to travel for the holidays.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Her MIL apparently didn’t think through the consequences of moving.

This is a good point!

She’s definitely not being selfish.

Sometimes it’s better to say less.

She has nothing to feel guilty about.

When you decide to move, the holidays might look different.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.