Holiday party help

I come from a large Italian family, and we’ve always had a big party on Christmas Eve night. My mother has, in recent years, complained about going to this party, because it’s an hour away and she doesn’t like driving at night. My husband has taken over the driving, and we even bought a larger vehicle to accommodate her and my dad for events such as this. She has an endless list of reasons now why she doesn’t want to go to this event now though...the driving turned out to be one of many reasons. The latest reason, and I think probably the most valid, is that she doesn’t want my daughter involved in family drama with this side of the family. There is some drama there. We had a drug addict in my very extended family (I think he’s like a 4th cousin), whose kids are now split up...one in foster care and one with my aunt. The rest of the family basically has it together, but there aren’t a lot of other kids, so my mother sees this one dysfunctional family as very toxic and doesn’t want my daughter around their kids. They’ve been exposed to some pretty horrible things and she thinks they’ll be a bad influence on my daughter as she gets older.I understand her concerns, but my daughter is an only child and I’ve always been happy that she has a large extended family to hang out with on the holidays. What my mother is trying to do, is separate us completely from this side of the family, so we’ll spend all holidays with just the grandparents. We do have another Christmas party with my dad’s side. They don’t have any kids at that party though. It’s all grown ups and older teenagers who completely ignore my daughter. I don’t know what to do 😬 I don’t love the hour drive in the dark on Christmas Eve night either, and they’re refused to change it to a Christmas Day event. Should I just give in and stop attending this event? Or should we separate from my parents and just go anyways? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2PDxAyw