DSS's mom doesn't celebrate Christmas, but feels entitled (every other year) to either keep DSS from celebrating it with us; or to try trading/selling the holiday to DH. Since August, she has laid the groundwork for this by promising DSS a Christmas ski trip in the mountains with a friend of hers, who lives there.
The truth is, her friend wants to spend the holiday with family, so Mom's and DSS's outbound flights for their ski trip were actually after Christmas. She just didn't plan to reveal that to DSS until he got out there, for the holiday. This all came out during mediation.
During mediation, she offered to sell Christmas to DH, in exchange for not having to pay her half of various bills and giving her 2 weeks of this winter break, instead of one. DH agreed, leaving us only a few days with DSS. At that point, there was no reason to tell DSS she had been lying to him about their Christmas plans, since he wouldn't be there that day, anyway.
Changing where he spent Christmas did not affect their ski trip. DH was given a 2-day window to find affordable plane tickets for DSS. At Mom's request, if he found tickets today (Dec. 26th), he had to fly DSS to the city where Mom lives. If DSS traveled tomorrow (the 27th), he had to fly into the city where Mom's friend lives, for the ski trip. This is written in the mediation agreement.
But the day after mediation, Mom canceled their ski trip. She continued telling DSS the trip had been over Christmas, so they "couldn't" go, since now he'd be here on the 25th.
So, we had to choose whether to let DSS believe DH had cheated his Mom out of Christmas and ruined DSS's and her vacation; or tell him the truth and let him realize his Mom had been lying to him for months. Nice. We did tell him the trip had always been scheduled after the holiday and that his Mom had shown the tickets to the mediator. We didn't actually use the word "lie", but it was kind of an inescapable conclusion. The even yuckier conclusion (I'm not sure DSS made this one) is that, to keep up the lie, Mom canceled their ski trip unnecessarily.
Anyway...now there's been a blizzard. Flights are canceled. Things may change over the next few days, but currently it's impossible for us to get DSS a flight until New Year's.
DSS is happy as a clam! His friends are over. They're playing in the snow. And, hey, his ski trip with Mom was canceled anyway. So he figures it's no big deal, postponing the visit.
Edited by VocalMinority - 1/22/13 at 5:22pm
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