M.C.
I would feel sad, but not guilty. She was offered the invitaion, and she declined. There are 5 weeks in the 'holiday' season. We have family that is all close, from different sides, etc. the first 2 years, we tried to get with everyone each holiday. 3 thanksgivings, 4 christmases. one christmas we started visiting at 8am for breakfast and didn't get home until 11:45pm! After that we started spreading it out over the 5 weeks. We do phone calls on the holiday to those we won't be seeing.
One thing we've done, is to exchange gifts with the person/people, but don't open them. Then on Christmas day, we call each other and open the gifts over the phone. Its actually pretty fun!
M.