Dear Carolyn: We are a very small family — just me, my older sister and my parents. Five years ago, my sister married into a very large family, and her in-laws host all the holidays. We’re always invited, but it’s never any fun for us. There are 20 of them together, talking and laughing, and me and my parents in the corner by ourselves.
I’ve honestly tried to join in, but they’re always talking among themselves about people I don’t know. I ask them about their lives, and they go on and on, but when it’s time for me to talk, I get either cut off or ignored. They try to be nice, but after the third or fourth attempt to answer a question, you can tell they don’t care about the answer.
So I’ve decided I’m not going for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. On Thanksgiving, some of my friends are meeting up for a hike in the morning, and then there’s a pub crawl later in the evening, and that’s enough holiday for me. I can order a pizza for dinner. For Christmas, I plan to have breakfast with my parents, open gifts and then kick back for the rest of the day while they go off to my sister’s in-laws’ house.
Even though my parents agree about the in-laws, they are telling me to suck it up and go for their sake. They and my sister are really upset with me, saying I’m going to ruin their holidays, hurt my brother-in-law’s feelings and not see my niece. I say there will be so many people around that my brother-in-law and niece won’t miss me, and I’ll see them both on Black Friday and then again on Christmas Eve, so it’s not like I’m missing out entirely.
Am I being selfish like they say? Don’t I have a right to enjoy my holidays, or do I have to suffer in silence?
— Anonymous
Anonymous: It’s (b), alas. Upon marriage, older sisters determine all holidays into eternity, where you and your parents are but lumps in the merriment, clusters of mute suffering — unless others insist you suffer vocally through the command sharing of anecdotes they have no interest in letting you finish.
Maybe two pub crawls?
You don’t need to defend any alternative plans to me.
Because there’s no defense for guilting people into attendance at anything, period. You don’t even owe your family an explanation, much less an apology, for making your own plans. None of them have standing to pressure you into celebrating with someone else’s un-inclusive in-laws ever. Expecting this every single holiday? Whew. I think that’s a new one for me, and I ran a holiday dysfunction show-and-tell for two decades.
I’ve made my point, but may I harp on the perversity of the logic? Your parents agree it’s bad when you go to the in-laws’ … but they still go … no word on what this accomplishes … but whatever it is, you “ruin” it by not going and … and … ahhh!
Your parents can simply decline the invitation(s)! There is no offense to give.
Your brother-in-law, if he’s so keyed to inclusion, could agree to celebrate some holidays at your parents’! Ahhh! But is he actually feeling hurt? More on this in a moment.
Having had my outburst, I might as well use it for illustration purposes: Your parents’ logic frustrated me, so, to help sort and resolve my frustration, I wrote about my feelings. What I did not do was guilt-trip family members into joining me at something I knew they wouldn’t enjoy just because it would make my feelings feel less feely for a bit.
See? If your parents are sad that you won’t be with them for In-Law Thanksgiving Christmas at the Hotel California, then that’s for them to resolve through their own actions — not for you to fix for them.
The actions they have to choose from include (but are not limited to) accepting your autonomy and making the best of going without you, making other plans with you, publishing snotty columns about it, or encouraging a more robust family blending effort. This is where your brother-in-law comes back in.
If he truly wants you to embrace his family as your own — versus just lament your absence as if it were so (according to your parents and possibly secondhand through your sister, ahem) — then he and your sister could include you in regular, frequent, low-key, non-holiday gatherings with one of his siblings or cousins or whoevers at a time. This builds conversations, then bonds. If you want that, then pitch the idea to your sister, in the time you spend not explaining or defending yourself on virtually anything else.
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