amitheasshole
Am I the Asshole? bOt 11mo ago 100%

AITA for telling my family not to show up at my house for Thanksgiving?

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The original was posted on /r/amitheasshole by /u/tiredonthanksgiving on 2023-11-19 02:27:56+00:00.


I have been cooking the majority of the Thanksgiving meal for over 10 years now. While I still get help from my sister and mom, I do 75% of the cooking.

Ever since I was little, we hosted Thanksgiving at my house. All of my father's side of the family comes to our house and my one aunt's family on my mom's side comes sometimes. We have a fairly big family so there needs to be enough food for about 30 people.

As I got older, I became more aware of how unequal the division of labor is. Not only does my family host the meal, but the out-of-state family sleeps over our house during the holiday weekend, and we provide the majority of the food. While my maternal aunt's family always brings a couple of dishes, there were years when none of the families on my father's side of the family brought any food to contribute. When we asked them to bring a dish, they would bring the easiest thing - a case of beer, a store-bought pie, or instant mashed potatoes. When we make comments about this, my dad's side of the family just replies "Well you guys are SUCH good cooks of course we want to eat your food." Or simply "Well I brought beer."

For context, we are not the wealthiest family unit in our extended family and all of my father's siblings have big enough houses to host. Given the cost and labor of doing all of this, we asked our dad to talk to his siblings to share some of the load but he just huffs that he asked them to but they didn't follow through. Even on years when we announced that we're doing Thanksgiving by ourselves we still received texts asking when dinner is a text asking when dinner is or they just show up. In addition to just showing up, they also demand to spilt the leftovers evenly.

My dad recently indicated that since he's the oldest sibling he feels like he has to host and that this aligns to our culture. I asked him if he's going to enforce the part of our culture which dictates that once I get married I'm supposed to spend the majority of my time with my husband's family (leaving them screwed since I do most of the cooking). He didn't answer.

Some of my aunts and uncles have been making jokes about how they're going to go to my house in the future for the holidays because they love my food. I made it VERY CLEAR to them that if I do not invite them to my home for Thanksgiving, I am not letting them in even if they show up at the door. They keep making comments like, "Wow you're just going to leave your family out on the streets during the holidays?" And I said, "Yes. I am going to lock my doors and I will not open them for you."

They all became very angry and complained to my dad about how I'm awful and how I don't care about the family. I love my family but I am just tired of doing the majority of work.

So AITA for telling my family not to show up at my house for Thanksgiving?

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