Now that the holidays have been over for a while, and the pressure of said holidays is over, I feel like I can address my holiday situation with my family maturely and intelligently. The short version is, How do you tell your family that things are going to change, and then act on that resolution in good conscience? I guess that is the big question for young adults…let me be more specific.

Christmas with my family is a rather regimented affair, but in the most boisterous manner possible, if you can imagine such a thing. For at least the last 30 Christmases (all I’ve been around for), it goes the same way. Brother (one year younger than I) and I sleep at Mom and Dad’s house on Christmas Eve (even when we have lived in Other Counties, Other States, and even the Big City, we have come home for this). Around 7:00, Dad wakes us up and we go downstairs to the family room to open presents. Mom and Dad sit on the couch and unwrap their gifts; Brother and I sit on the floor, under the tree, no less, and open ours. Dad is very into Christmas; he still acts like we are little kids as we unwrap stuff. I don’t have a problem with the inevitable over-gifting, because I know they get a kick out of buying stuff for us and, anyway, they have the money to do it. It makes them happy, so I don’t fight them on it anymore. However, just to put some perspective on it: When we were kids, Brother and I got around 40-50 presents each. Since we hit our 20s, they have cut down on numbers — to around 25-30 each, by rule (they won’t just put all the money into one big, expensive gift; I’ve asked a few times, been denied, and given up). Still way more than most people my age get, and you can imagine it takes a while to go through them, since we go one by one and watch each other open them. We are usually done by 10:00, at which time we have to hurry up and get ready to go to Grandma’s house.

When we get to Grandma’s (Dad’s mom’s) house around 10:30, what do you know? Another ridiculous haul of gifts, as in 10-15 each for each of us, plus 10-15 each for Uncle and Aunt, and 10-15 each for Boyfriend and Brother’s Girlfriend, for a total of around 100 gifts. Sweet merciful crap. At Grandma’s, though, the gift-opening is a total freaking free-for-all, with everyone talking at once and ripping open stuff and throwing bows into a bag in the middle of the little living room and Uncle capturing the whole thing on video (he’s one of those men who takes videos only a man would take — ass shots, extreme nose hair closeups, people with food in their mouths, et cetera). This process is a total headache. Dad and Uncle and Brother’s voices are so loud, and they talk nonstop; Grandma is mostly deaf, so in order to thank her for whatever you just opened, you have to wave to get her attention and yell above the din to be heard. Once you are heard, you are sure to hear that she didn’t know whether you wanted the gift (of course you did; it was on your list) and that you can take it back if you want.

After the feeding frenzy is over, it is time to eat dinner, which is fine, but Uncle, Dad, and Brother do most of the talking (loudly), and most of their interests are not things I know about or particularly want to know about: drag racing, the hunting lodge, Damn Liberals, et cetera. Sometimes, they do get on the topics of Old Family Stories, which I I love, or football, of which I am a rabid fan and about which I love to talk. The women mostly listen politely, laughing at the loud comments of the men, except for Grandma, who just says whatever she wants and no one really listens because she can’t hear your reply anyway. After dinner, everyone sits around in the living room talking about tryptophan and cars and sports and so on. Around 4:00, we pack up the car and leave to go back to Mom and Dad’s. It is not the most fun day for me, and I don’t look forward to it anymore, which makes me feel terrible, because it is so important to them.

When I was younger, I really looked forward to Christmas. My family is a fun group that my college and grad school friends always liked to visit, because they are pretty crazy and always up for a laugh. The problem is, I have started looking at Christmas as a total freaking chore. At this point, I am just tolerating it, but that is not really the problem. The problem is, there is absolutely no space for any deviation from the formula. Fewer gifts from Grandma because she’s only got Social Security? Unthinkable! One large gift from Mom and Dad, rather than a bunch of little stuff I can buy for myself now? That takes all the fun out of it! Green beans instead of corn? Perish the thought! Okay, have it your way. I concede these points.

Enter: Significant Others. Brother started bringing his Serious Girlfriend to our family’s Christmas deal a few years ago. The first year they were Serious, he left her at her parents’ and came to Mom and Dad’s to sleep for Christmas Eve, telling her that he “had” to be there. She didn’t stay at my parents’, because (surprise!) she has family of her own, including two divorced-and-remarried parents, so her mom has some traditions (including Christmas morning breakfast) and her dad has some (including Christmas dinner later in the day). For the last two years, Brother and His Girlfriend have actually broken with our family’s tradition by coming only to Grandma’s and opening all of their gifts there. I always hear from Mom and Dad, though, how sad they are that Brother and Girlfriend can’t stay for Christmas Eve and open presents on Christmas morning at their house.

Here is the real problem as it pertains to me: I have been with my own Serious Boyfriend for several years now and we plan to marry this year sometime. He has not always been in the country around Christmas (he was born in Europe, so when we were in school, the holidays were a good time for him to go visit home; for a few years, he was working abroad and didn’t make it back). This year, he had planned to come to my parents’ house on the Eve and stay through Christmas Day. First, of course, he went to visit his own parents, who now live about an hour’s drive from my parents’ house. When he got there, he found his already-ill mother had taken a bad turn, including a 101 fever that she’d had for days and couldn’t shake.

I should note here that Boyfriend’s mom has been in bad health since before we met (they moved to the U.S. for better doctors, but that’s another story), and Boyfriend’s dad is battling clinical depression, so Boyfriend helps them as much as he can when he is there. Anyway, on Christmas Eve, Boyfriend’s Mom was really not well, so he called and apologized that he would not be able to be there for Christmas Eve, but that he would come directly to Grandma’s the next day for gifts and dinner. Mom and Dad were disappointed and a little annoyed, but whatever.

Well, his mom took a turn for the worse, and during the Christmas Day Grandma’s Presents Melee, he called me to tell me he was taking her to the ER with a 103 fever and would have to come on the 26th. He really was sorry, because he (like all of my friends) likes my family. He always has fun when he visits with me, so I am sure he was not just trying to get out of coming. When I told Mom that Boyfriend couldn’t come until the next day, she got all quiet and just looked destroyed. When I told Grandma that he’d have to come visit her the next day (which he did), she got all p.o.ed and told me that he “promised” her at Thanksgiving that he would be there (which, technically speaking, he did…but only because she said, “Boyfriend, promise me you will be at my house for Christmas.” Hey, he’s polite to his elders! He actually promised to try to be there, which is not the same thing, because he knew his mom was not at 100% and might need help). Dad got all huffy and superior about it, implying that Boyfriend’s priorities were all effed up and he was “undependable” because “you can’t make a plan around him.” They obviously thought he was being rude for not leaving his sick mom with his depressed dad to come to Grandma’s house to open gifts and eat tons of food.

Clearly, if he had a choice in the matter, he would have come to our family’s shindig. Christmas at Hospital with Depressed Dad and Ill Mom vs. Christmas with Fun Family, Lots of Gifts, and Too Much Food? No contest. I even overheard Grandma saying to Aunt, “Boyfriend’s mom is always sick!” as though her being chronically ill means that she can be ignored, because hey, that’s just the status quo. Or that he is making up her sickness so he doesn’t have to come (he isn’t; she’s a cancer survivor with lots of autoimmune problems). Or that Boyfriend’s family’s ailments are a personal insult to my family, which they obviously are not.

Clearly, they have issues with Boyfriend for not always being able to drop everything with his family to come see them. They like him very much, and we have fun when we do get together. Their issues are not my problem, and I can’t help them with that, because for whatever reason, they want to shit on him for being dutiful to his own family. This is sort of the way Dad’s side of the family operates: Their Side Rules. We didn’t have much contact with Mom’s side of the family growing up (for lots of reasons), and Brother’s Girlfriend has confided in me that she feels like Brother expects her to choose our family whenever there is a holiday, rather than make an every-other-year schedule like many couples do.

I think that my family is disappointed with Boyfriend for not ditching his (in their view) loser family to come to “our side,” or that they are disappointed with me for not impressing upon him the great importance of preserving our family’s traditions, or that they are annoyed with me for not choosing a man I can boss into coming to my family’s celebrations and forgoing his own, or a combination of those. They were not sure how to handle Boyfriend when we first started dating, because he is not into drag racing and hunting; he’s a quiet, polite guy with a PhD in math who likes opera. Then they found out he is a sports junkie and an all-around nice guy, so they have welcomed him in (even though he will never yell to be heard for any reason, so he’ll never fit in there). In any case, however they feel about Boyfriend, this Christmas situation is a problem that will not go away. I overheard Dad on the phone talking to a friend, saying, “Grandma lives for Christmas, the big day at her house. You know, you just can’t take that away from her. It’s the only day of the year that she’s really happy.” Man, tear out my heart, why don’t you?

Sars, when I heard that, I realized that the family expects me and Brother to come home for Christmas every year forever. This year, for several reasons, Mom and Dad’s gift opening was done on Christmas Eve night (I know!), but Mom said that “when we have little feet, we will have to go back to Christmas morning.” When Boyfriend and I have kids, we are looking forward to having Christmas at our own house, starting my own traditions with them. We plan to incorporate elements of Christmas from Austria (Boyfriend’s homeland), and I just think it would be fun to do it ourselves, the tree, the food, cookies for Santa, carrots for the reindeer, the whole bit. I even foolishly had visions of Mom and Dad and maybe even Boyfriend’s Parents (if they are well) coming to us, to celebrate with us. My friends my age are having kids or planning to do so soon, and I have coworkers with kids, and the consensus among them is that once you have kids, your family starts coming to you. This year, I got an inkling that this is not necessarily how my family is going to see it.

The family asks very little of me and Brother and our SOs during the year; it is just these one or two days that they are frantic about, and always have been, so I feel like sort of a jerk saying that I am not going to participate, especially since I know they will buy all of the gifts anyway and be all sad that we are not there. Boyfriend and I planned to take a trip to somewhere warm for Christmas this year, just the two of us, so I was sweating telling them that I might not be there. Then his mom started getting sick, so we called it off and I got a brief reprieve. I do know, however, that I have no intention of going there every. Single. Year. Forever. No matter what.

Should I start breaking away now, so that when our children arrive, the family will be used to the fact that we are not always there? Or should I take the path of least resistance, keep going up there until that time, with or without Boyfriend, and put up with their comments if he can’t be there? Or is there an Option C? I can’t stand the thought of hurting Mom and Dad, whom I love dearly, because they don’t ever ask for anything. And who wants to give her grandma more to worry about? Mom and Dad are not the guilt-trip kind, so I am not trying to dodge a bullet from them; I am genuinely worried about hurting their feelings.

Thanks in advance for your sage words,
There Really Is No Place Like My Family’s Home For The Holidays

Some friends and I who are avid readers have a question we thought was Vine-worthy: how do we tell a mutual friend her husband is an ASS?

Here’s the deal: I have three friends A, B, and C. We aren’t “best friends,” but we’re good friends — we go to movies and have dinner and have been to each other’s houses. We ask each other advice about things and invite each other places. And that’s the problem — we cannot invite C anywhere without her thinking that her husband D is automatically included. Which he is not. Because he is an ASS.

Let me explain: D doesn’t like anything. Everything fails to live up to his expectations. The movie wasn’t funny enough, the hamburger was too well done, the traffic lights aren’t timed properly, et cetera and so on. And, to make matters worse, anyone who disagrees with him is stupid. “Oh, you thought the movie was funny? That’s because you clearly don’t understand Real Humor.” “Oh, you didn’t have a problem with the hamburger because you don’t really care about food.” “The lights didn’t bother you because you don’t understand their importance.” In addition to his dissatisfaction with life in general, he’s rude. At one point or another he’s made a very insulting comment to each of us. He’s annoyed and offended me to the point where when I do have to spend time with him (e.g., C’s birthday party), I’m polite, but I don’t try to join into conversations he’s in. I also don’t talk to him unless he asks a question of me or he joins a conversation I’m already in. Basically, I try to minimize my exposure so that he doesn’t say “you are SO STUPID!” to me (again) and I have to kick him in the head.

A and B are at the breaking point and about ready to tell C, who is a bit of a doormat, frankly, that her husband is an ASS and she needs to kick him to the curb because he’s bad for her and brings her down. While I agree with them, I don’t think that there’s any way to tell a woman that her husband is an ASS and remain her friend. It’s not like she’s going to choose us over the guy she married. Plus, really, it’s not my business who C chose to marry unless she asks me for advice about it, which she hasn’t.

So I’m wondering if you have any suggestions as to how we could uninclude him in things, so that we could spend time with C and not have to deal with the His High Assiness. Right now the only way we get to see her without him is to eat at restaurants that serve foreign food because D only eats American food like grilled cheese on white bread, so he won’t go to, for example, a Mexican restaurant. And we’re getting tired of Mexican food.

Signed,
It’s Not You, It’s HIM

I need some advice. About a month ago I met this really sweet guy. I don’t
think we ever really hit it off, but we do go and play squash together, and
for my my birthday he gave me some flowers and a really really sappy card.
That was when I realized, that I didn’t really like this kid, but he was
apparently head over heels for me. I should have broke things off then. But,
alas, I didn’t.

Soooooo, last week we finally slept together. Now, after experiencing it all,
I realize that I really don’t want any of this, and I really do want to break
it off this time.

This is the last week of school, and in the next few weeks after exams I’m going
home. We don’t live that far apart, but I got a summer job up north, so I
won’t be seeing him for the summer.

Now, after all that, my question: Do you think it would be better to tell him
we’ll see what happens over the summer, and then intentionally keep out of
contact, or go up to him and say “I don’t want to be with you anymore,” or
something to that effect (maybe with a little more empathy on my part).

I really don’t want to hurt this guy although I realize I probably will. I
was his first girlfriend, and the first person he slept with.

Any ideas on the “nicest” way to go about this?

Thanks again,
Cold-Hearted Bitch in Vic