Unless there are knock down, drag out fights at the table I'd just go with the flow and let everyone sort themselves out as they seem to be doing already. Perhaps you could have a quiet word with your son and let him know carefully the source of his children's discomfort so he can gently discourage her clinginess in front of them. I would imagine her clinginess stems at least in part from her feeling uncomfortable, it must be daunting to be in a group with inlaws and exes as well. Let her know you think she is a nice person :-)

That's so funny. But if you think it's hard for us, consider people like the events coordinator at a fancy private bank where I played for their holiday party last year. Nobody cuts her any slack at all. She was semi-distracted by the end of the evening even though she'd tried to accommodate every special diet she could think of. By the time the party was over she was off in a corner muttering to herself, "Well then, why didn't you eat before you came?" over and over, poor thing. Another link on a similar theme, but not quite as funny as yours: Here is a link that might be useful: Armstrong and Miller Medieval Feast

This is going to be long, so feel free to pass by, if you don't have the time or patience, or if I've told this tale before. My daughter always wins when her friends compare bad family holidays. Here's what happened in our family several years ago. Back story: one of DH's brothers was out of town. SIL was taking care of his cat for him. He'd told her he DID NOT want her son (his nephew) in his apt. when he wasn't there. SIL, never one to follow the rules took her son (17 years old) with her on one of her trips. Son stole an expensive (?) porn tape from his uncle. Uncle came home, was livid, complained to SIL, she did nothing. In all honesty, BIL is really cheap and he was mostly annoyed about the cost of the missing trash. Oh, and somewhere along the line, SIL had found the porn in her son's room, and destroyed it. Okay, fast forward to Christmas that year (a few months after the above incident). FIL was in the hospital, Mil was pretty bad with Alzheimers. All the rest of the siblings, their spouses/significant others and children were there. We had a lovely dinner, opened gifts. People had sort of dispersed around the house in conversational groups. BIL and his gf and I were in the living room with MIL. All of a sudden the SIL flounces in, and demands: John (not his real name), Did you give Gary (again, name has been changed to protect the guilty) a present? John confirms that no, he didn't give Gary a gift, that since Gary had never paid him back for the porn, he could consider that his gift. We were sitting talking and figured that was the end of it. Well, SIL somehow manaaged to get her brother and son in a huge fight. It was really intense and scary. One of the teen-aged nieces got really worried and called the police. Not one, not 2, not 3, but FOUR police cars pulled onto the property, and ringed their cars around the back yard. Mind you, this isn't a spread out rural area, or even an average suburb. It's and EXTREMELY expensive, exclusive town, that's even been featured in some movies--you'd know the name if I dropped it. Now, inlaws' families have been there since the early 1900's, long before it became the poster town for "Yuppieville". So, we've got two hot-headed, immature guys shouting profanities in the kitchen, on the verge of getting physical, and a bevy of police officers surrounding the house. Eventually, they get the 2 guys out back to talk to them to calm them down. DD was disgusted with the whole thing, and was supposed to meet up with a friend later on anyway. "Go ahead," I told her, "I'd escape if I could, too." (I think, DH had run home to our house to turn on the light display, so I was sort of 'stuck' without wheels). Here's the thing, though, that year, the in-laws had decided to put the tree in front of the front door, so it couldn't be opened (I know--they're idiots, the whole bunch). So DD had no choice but to leave out one of the back doors. Which meant she had to walk right past the charged pow wow taking place in the back yard. So she headed out, the talking stopped, everyone's head turned to look at her. Not knowing what else to do, she called out, "Merry Christmas!" and quickly beat a retreat down the driveway. And on top of everything else, MIL--who was born, raised, married, raised her family--in that house, turned to me, with the confusion of the Alzheimer patient and plaintively asked me, "Would you take me home?" Well, there you have it. Merry Christmas to all, and may you never experience such a holiday yourselves!

I have to laugh at the "bugs in the flour" reactions. When I was a kid we lived overseas in Brazzaville (in the Congo in Africa); San Salvador, El Salvado; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. When you used flour you sifted it to make sure you got any bugs out. Granted, this was in the 60's and early 70's, but no one ever got sick from the flour after it was baked or cooked. You also checked the cereal, rice, etc. One time, about 10 or so years ago, my Mom and brother were doing the Nutri-System diet. They send out prepackaged food. On the forums, someone mentioned they found a bug in their food, were outraged, and called Nutri-System. The company said they would replace the product or offer a refund. The person wanted some other type of compensation. I told my Mom about it and she said "I lived too many years overseas to let a little bug bother me." Would I eat food that had bugs in it these days? No. But it doesn't cause a gag reflex either. Now if we were talking rodents....