I've been putting this off all day, and I need to just do it, but I thought I'd ask for some wording help (also, Cal, you were such a big help the last time she went -to put it delicately- fucknuts).
Background: FI's family has an "interesting" home life (his Mom is living in my hometown, about and hour and a half from his parent's house, for work),they don't have a working kitchen, and I've never been inside the house, but I'm pretty much picturing some hoarding through laziness going on. His Dad and Bro like me fine, his Mom does not. My family loves him and is so proud of him and has plenty of room for us to stay wherever. We need to figure out Christmas, and us both going to their house is out of the question, as I have never been inside, so if we were to both go to that town I would have to get a key from one of my friends who lives there (it's a college town and I know people who went there/live there) and spend part of Christmas alone in someone else's apartment while he sees them. Oh, and they have one car, that his Mom is using where she lives, and it's a 70s station wagon, so not super reliable, so they rent a car for most trips.
The obvious option is for us to go to our seperate family events (we do a small thing with my Dad and his Mom and my sibs on Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning, and then drive to my Mom's family's hometown, about an hour and a half, to do Christmas lunch and Dirty Santa) and meet back in P-cola the day after Christmas. I hate this option. I really want to spend Christmas with him, we've never spent one together, we've either been doing seperate family or been LDR.
The option that FI wants to do is invite them down here for Christmas Eve/Day and then see my family before and after. It means a lot to him, and I can be okay with this, my family will understand (my Mom's is so big that they're going to do their traditions whether I'm there or not, and my Grandmother is pretty flexible as long as I give her some notice).
Here's where I need help. What I don't want to happen is FI's family saying they'll come, me getting everything ready and buying all the food, and then two days before, them saying they couldn't get a rental car and that they can't come anyways--this happened at Thanksgiving. At that point,we could totally still just go see my fam, but we'd have to find a dog-sitting short notice and we'd still have all the food and stuff. So I want to write a short FB message (the only way his fam communicates) to FMIL just to let her know that we'd love for them to come, and we'd like to know as soon as they can, so that cars are rented and such. Also, if FI is going to take leave before or after Christmas, he needs to go ahead and put it in.
So:
Hi FMIL,
I hope everything is good with you! It was so nice to see you guys the other weekend, I really enjoyed it, and am glad FBIL's writing class went well. FI and I were sorry you guys couldn't make it for Thanksgiving, but I know how that can be, so we were wondering if you guys wanted to come down here for Christmas. I don't know what your schedule's like, but we'd love to have you. I wanted to try to talk to you about it now so that we could sort out things like cars and also if there were any special foods or traditions you guys have, we could make sure what you need is here, as well as making sure FI gets time off to spend with everyone. Again, hope all's well,
Me
For those asking why FI can't do this (I also ask myself this question), he says he doesn't want to put pressure on them and that he's already asked them once. I just want to go ahead and get things as straight as we can now, so that come Dec. 20th, we're not running about like lunatics.
Sorry for length, and thanks for help.
