Hey - we don’t mind being a backup plan. No trouble at all. We’re sortof ‘decide what to do at the last minute’ kind of folks ourselves... Hopefully you’ll feel invited there. You are invited up at the beach house. I dunno... if you wanted to, you could even drive yourself and stop by both places.
I think the trouble is that my brother thinks of me as family and therefore doesn’t consider giving me a formal invitation of any sort...and my sister-in-law doesn’t feel comfortable with inviting me to someone else’s house, and for some reason it doesn’t occur to either of them (or the rest of the clan) to say, “Hey, we really should ask Rosie, shouldn’t we? Just see what she’s up to?”
At the very least, it’d be nice if I got a phone call saying, “Hey, this year we’re meeting at X’s house — if you’d like to come, you’re always welcome!”
Instead I end up playing this game, where it feels like I’m begging them for sympathy, which I don’t care for. :-\ But I would like to see my nieces and that. Ungh.