{"id":35647,"date":"2026-10-07T15:31:26","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=35647"},"modified":"2026-10-07T15:31:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:31:26","slug":"a-week-before-christmas-i-overheard-my-daughter-say-just-send-all-8-kids-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=35647","title":{"rendered":"A Week Before Christmas, I Overheard My Daughter Say: \u201cJust Send All 8 Kids Over\u2026\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\"><strong>My Daughter Said, \u201cJust Leave All 8 Kids With Mom.\u201d So I Did Something They Never Expected.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">A week before Christmas, I overheard my daughter say:<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">\u201cJust leave all eight kids with Mom. She has nothing else to do anyway. We\u2019ll go to the hotel and enjoy ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">I\u2019m 67, a widow, and every Christmas I\u2019m the one who cooks, shops, cleans, buys the gifts, and takes care of everyone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">They had already planned their vacation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">They had already decided I would babysit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">They just never bothered to ask me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">That night, I looked around my house and realized how long I had been treated like a free nanny instead of a mother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">So I canceled the $900 Christmas dinner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">I returned the gifts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">And on December 23rd, I packed one small suitcase and left for the coast with my longtime friend Paula.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">No argument.<br \/>\nNo guilt.<br \/>\nNo goodbye.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">For the first time in decades, I chose <strong>myself<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>And when my children arrived expecting eight grandchildren to be waiting for Grandma\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My Daughter Said, \u201cJust Leave All 8 Kids With Mom.\u201d So I Did Something They Never Expected. A week before Christmas, I overheard my daughter say: \u201cJust leave all eight kids with Mom. She has nothing else to do anyway. We\u2019ll go to the hotel and enjoy ourselves.\u201d I\u2019m 67, a widow, and every Christmas&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=35647\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;A Week Before Christmas, I Overheard My Daughter Say: \u201cJust Send All 8 Kids Over\u2026\u201d&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35648,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35649,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35647\/revisions\/35649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}