What began as a passion for hosting elaborate family gatherings has soured into frustration and conflict.

When a party planner’s meticulous efforts are met with criticism and disrespect, she decides to step back from hosting duties, only to face backlash from her family.

Read on for the story!

AITA for refusing to continue hosting parties for my family?

I (26F) love hosting parties for my family. I’m usually the one in charge of Christmas and most birthdays are celebrated at my home.

I love doing nice and elaborate parties. I usually plan a menu, make everything from scratch, decorate…for Christmas I started doing Secret Santa and depending on the event even some games or karaoke.

Well this sounds massively joyful.

Before I started doing this, my family used to do pretty normal events. Just one meal like a basic bbq, buying pizza, a traditional food and buying a cake for dessert. Never decorated and the parties were just about showing up, eating and leaving.

There was nothing wrong with that but I love Christmas so about 4 years ago I decided I was going to host for once and did it as I mentioned. Everyone loved it and were praising me for everything.

With the years I’ve definitely improved my cooking and party planning skills and honestly I’m very proud of what I do. They liked it so much that they started asking that for some birthdays if I could host a party as a gift for them and I happily did.

Can I come?

It’s important to mention that my main family is only 9 or 10 people so it’s not too much for me to handle or too expensive.

Now to the issue. The last parties I’ve been hosting which were the last Christmas, my mom’s, uncle’s and aunt’s birthdays and my husband’s birthday as the most recent, they have gotten what I consider a nasty attitude.

For example, I would send proper invites clearly stating that the party would start at 3:30pm. Well, they would show up at 12pm and comment how I wasn’t ready.

Uhh, excuse me?

For my husband’s party they saw that the decorations were half way done and started asking why the food wasn’t ready (I had told them it was an early dinner but decided to show up without having eating lunch) and to just give up with the decorations and start cooking cause I was being rude by letting them be hungry.

Long story short, they started eating random stuff and everyone pressured me into cutting several things off the party and move the schedule quicker to accommodate them, leading me to not have the party as I had pictured and having to rush cook, just for some of them to leave right after the food and left only 6 of us behind.

They have done the same in all the other events, show up early, shame me for not being ready, eat and leave.

Wowza.

That leads to yesterday when I was talking to my mom and asked me what was I planning for Christmas this year. I said I wasn’t planning anything since I had told them last time I didn’t like their attitude and I was done.

That led to a fight about how I can’t “take a joke” and I should instead “learn to take help and accomodate to our family.”

The argument lead to nothing but has left me wondering, Am I really the AH here? My husband is on my side but I’d like some unbiased opinions.

Despite the hard work and dedication, the constant criticism led to calling it quits, leaving the family debating whether they were in the wrong.

Were they? According to Reddit, definitely.

This person offers some options.

This person thinks OP needs to just stop hosting parties.

This person has some wise words.

When your party planning turns into a family feud, sometimes it’s best to retire the apron.

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