You should read her responses to some of the comments on her post. She has zero empathy for her husband. She is horrible. His dad died the week before Christmas and her comment was that they couldn't go to Hawaii because the funeral was on the same day the flights were.

Her father buys her an all-expenses-paid vacation to Hawaii every year in mid-Winter. What kind of person did you expect her to be? Nobody's grief gets to ruin the good time of Daddy's little girl! (p.s.: Yes, total a**hole move that he stuck her with watching the kids alone after she took them away from him. He should have hired a nanny and paid for her to go to Hawaii with them so his wife could have the best time ever as she abandoned him in his grief. Thoughtless! Sounds like she missed out on ANOTHER Hawaiian paradise moment. 😢 I bet this is the first and last year she agrees to Thanksgiving with MIL!)

Stop judging. That is God's job.

It could have at least been offered but OP doesn’t say if there are other siblings/family that celebrate Christmas together in the husbands family. Hubby should not have tried to change the plan last minute but OP sounds like the a*****e to me. Every year Xmas with her family? That and her ‘my vacation’ wording sounds very selfish.

This! My very first thought was 'invite MIL!'. A change of scenery and spending the holiday with her grandkids might help take her mind off everything and she'll feel included.

That's what I didn't get. Why wasn't inviting her along the first thing she did? Give her a chance to make new memories and see that she can still have new experiences in life after the loss she suffered. Of course if she didn't want to, that's ok too, but I don't understand why it wasn't even brought up. I'm guessing the wife doesn't compromise much and this is the straw breaking her husband's back.

This is the comment I was looking for. Why couldn't MIL come along at husband/wife's expense? That way she has a distraction from being in a house where memories were made from prior years and potentially begin a new tradition. But sounds like his wife is pretty thoughtless and he's too busy dealing with her and mom/his grief to figure this out. And her annoyance at having to watch her kids is equally obnoxious as well. She doesn't seem to want to make any accommodation for anyone else. Hope hubby not wanting to talk to her is him realizing he probably hitched himself to a person he can't live with.