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The Relatives You Only See in November and December

Mira Calloway6 min read
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The Relatives You Only See in November and December — Family

Decide in advance what you actually want from the season

Most December resentment is the result of drifting into arrangements rather than choosing them. So choose early, while it is still abstract and the stakes feel low. Not who you should see — what you want the month to feel like by the end of it.

Then work backwards. If you want to arrive into January not exhausted, you may be able to do two large gatherings but not four. If one particular relationship always leaves you flattened for days, that is useful data, not a moral failing. You can see someone for a short lunch instead of a weekend. You can go for the afternoon and not the overnight. You can suggest a walk, which has the enormous advantage of a natural endpoint and no seating plan.

Say your version early and plainly. "We're doing Boxing Day this year rather than the day itself" lands completely differently in early November than it does on the 20th of December, when everyone's plans have set like concrete and your change reads as a rejection.

Handle the questions without taking the bait

Seasonal relatives ask seasonal questions, and the sharpest ones usually arrive wrapped in concern. When are you two going to make it official. Are you still at that job. Is he eating enough. You are not obliged to answer any of them, and you are especially not obliged to answer them well.

A short, warm, uninformative reply does almost all the work: "We're happy as we are, honestly." "Still there, still busy." "He's doing brilliantly, thanks for asking." Then — and this is the part people skip — ask them something. Most intrusive questioning is not malice, it is a lack of conversational material, and handing someone a different topic is far more effective than defending yourself on the one they chose.

If a comment genuinely crosses a line, you can say so quietly and once, without a summit meeting: "I'd rather not go into that today." Said evenly, it almost always ends the subject. Said after rehearsing it for an hour in the bathroom, it tends to come out at a volume that makes the whole table turn round.

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