AITAH for ghosting my uninvolved in-laws on Christmas?

My husband (36M) and I (36F) have spent the past 19 years and 19 Chrismases together. Every year, the holidays are inevitably shrouded in stress, so much that for the last few years, I’ve been asking if we can just go away on a vacation to escape.

For context, my in-laws are largely uninvolved in our lives (their choice, not ours). We live local, but for whatever reason, they do not participate in our son’s life. The only time we see them is on holidays. The holidays are then put on a gigantic pedestal which creates a lot of pressure to have a huge, traditional, idyllic experience—especially Christmas. The family dynamic is less than idyllic, though. My husband’s parents are divorced (FIL came out as gay after a 20+ year marriage and three kids. He is now married to the man he cheated on my MIL with prior to the marriage ending). Factor into the equation that my MIL is hoarder and having a sit down meal at her house is not an option. So if we don’t go to a restaurant, one of our families has to volunteer to host (not easy with three kids under 8YO between us). In order to make sure my husband’s parents get to see the kids and grandkids they want to see on the date/time they want to see them, we end up planning (and taking time off work) to host/attend sometimes as many as five different Christmas get-togethers.

The other issue is the over the top gifts. I’m talking about multiple gifts for everyone (kids, girlfriends, spouses, aunts, uncle, grandparents). None of the gifts are particularly thoughtful either— just a bunch of random junk thrown in a bag that we usually end up throwing out anyway. Some years back, I asked if we could opt out of the gift exchange as our dog had been getting expensive cancer treatments, and we were broke. To this day, my FIL deliberately excludes us from receiving the homemade snacks he gives away as party favors as punishment for the one year we didn’t participate in gifts.

I’ve endured this for a long time, but our son is now 5 and starting to get into Santa and Christmas traditions. The high stress shuffling from house to house, making sure we have enough gifts and food for people who aren’t happy no matter what we do is usually enough to get me in a bad mood, then my husband and are I snipping at each another… it’s just not the Christmas I want for my family.

So this year we pulled the trigger and ghosted them. We gave notice about two months in advance to give it some time to sink in. Then we went on a 5-day trip the week of Christmas to the Poconos. As expected, his parents are livid. FIL won’t even speak to us and MIL villainizes me at every turn.

AITAH for taking a year off from this toxic tradition?