This is for Looking for Option three: if these are your husband's relatives, try talking to your husband. Explain that you enjoy seeing the family (make sure you use "the" instead of "your" family) but that worrying over the bills and cleaning the house afterwards is taking a toll on you. If your husband has half a heart or spine, he'll ask them to either pitch in or find a hotel. If he doesn't, use the money you would normally spend on them and go, by yourself, to a nice B&B and let him take care of "the" family by himself. He'll see what it's like to do this alone. It might give him pause for next year...good luck!

I disagree. I've been both the daughter and now the parent. Parents should not have favorite children. You can be closer to one over the other but that's based on how the child relates with the parent. I am closer to my mother than my sister not because I am the "favorite". Yes, we all joke about who Mom loves best etc- we can do this in fun because we know our mother loves us all equally. I do not have a favorite child, as I love my children equally. If my father had referred to my sibling as his favorite, I would be very hurt and the next time my father required any help, I would tell him to contact my brother. It is intolerable that a parent would refer to one child as his favorite and that the favorite child would stand mute. Once Dad apologized, then you can forgive him for being a Dumbass.

Little Sister, It is very common for people to talk nonsense when they are coming out of anesthesia. Dad probably didn't mean what he seemed to be saying. In my own family, one brother seems to be the favorite while other siblings do more for our parents. Try not to dwell on it.

I agree with Marie-Claude and was going to suggest the same thing myself. Take your own holiday... visit friends, other family, or just go to a nice motel and have some relaxing days to yourself. If you stay in town you can go over for the holiday meal to be with the group and if they ask why you are staying in a motel, just say that the holidays are a time for you to relax and you just need a more quiet environment to do that. Then... tell your husband to let you know when the house is back in order after their departure... meaning it looks the same as when you left. Don't go back until HE has done the cleaning up. And... perhaps he won't even mind doing all this work and you have now created a nice holiday tradition for yourself.

Yet ANOTHER woman who tries to win (through slavery) kindness and love from people who have none to give. Face it, your father takes you for granted and always will because you let him.

STOP IT. STOP being the doormat. STOP being the caretaker. Live you own life. Walk away and let LazyBrother pick up after Daddy. Dad needs to reap what he has sown. When LazyBumBrother leaves and Dad's alone, maybe he'll realize just what he's done.