Anonymous wrote:What are your little nips, tucks and shortcuts—white lies and lies of omission—that get you through hosting family, or visiting family?

1) Garage drinks: I have a bottle of Baileys and a bottle of sangria that I keep in the garage. Here and there, I’m filling up my “water cup” with this or that.
GROSS
2) I have so many small errands to run! Just kidding, I’m fully prepared, but I’ll drive around and look at lights by myself or listen to an audiobook in my car for awhile.

3) The day after Christmas, I’m “visiting a friend from out of town who is staying in Columbia.” Just kidding, I’m going to a spa in Columbia for a three-hour treatment.

Anonymous wrote:Simplified -
1) Gifts.
- Just a secret Santa with the extended family. Price limit.
- Money to kids
- DH and I buy our own gifts.
2) No cards.
- Send a return card to those who send us cards.
- Or not.
3) Take out food
4) No Christmas Lights. We have put lovely outdoor lights for year round happiness. Lights out at 11 pm.
5) No tree.
6) No jockeying to host. Adult kids ILs want them at their place or take them on a cruise. Go for it. No competition from our side.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hack to a wonderful Christmas is the belief that you are as worthy of joy and peace as anybody else in your story. If you have young – – very young – – children, they are your responsibility. Not grandparents, not siblings, not aunts. I stopped hosting people who don’t add to the joy of the day years ago and we have wonderful holidays full of the food and drink we like and the music we like and most importantly 18-20 people who all genuinely want to see and spend time together! So much holiday misery boils down to assigning your own happiness a lesser value.

It's lovely you have 18-20 people like that!

I only have DH. He is wonderful. His family and friends aren't local but he does have them. I did not keep up friendships well, some died, family died. I feel lonely but realize I don't even keep track of neighbor names since the ones who had been friends all moved to bigger houses.

Anonymous wrote:I've learned to draw boundaries and enforce them especially with my sister-in-law. I get it that no one wants to hang out at home with old people over the holidays. But she and her family now make plans to travel over Christmas time with other families and expect me and my husband to entertain their parents - which is fine. We don't mind at all. But then she wants to come over to our house with her entire family over the weekend immediately after Christmas (when she is back) to "celebrate" with us expecting us to host all over again. I flat out said, "No, you don't get two Christmases. Sorry." We comprised to meet in two weeks for a new year's thing.

Anonymous wrote:The hack to a wonderful Christmas is the belief that you are as worthy of joy and peace as anybody else in your story. If you have young – – very young – – children, they are your responsibility. Not grandparents, not siblings, not aunts. I stopped hosting people who don’t add to the joy of the day years ago and we have wonderful holidays full of the food and drink we like and the music we like and most importantly 18-20 people who all genuinely want to see and spend time together! So much holiday misery boils down to assigning your own happiness a lesser value.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes clueless people needed to be treated like clueless people. Every year my BIL does something super annoying.
--One year he brought a years worth of junk mail to go through and filled all my trashcans. No problem, I just asked him to help me empty them.
--Last year he brought bunch of expired snack foods to our house. Like 200 pieces. I told him just to leave in his car, unless he had some moon pies, which he didn't.
--This year he brought all his laundry. He is 68 years old married to my sister not some young bachelor. I told him, only laundry in the afternoon with so many showers in the morning taxing our smallish hot water heater. He complied. Clueless.

lol. I am kind of fascinated by this guy that brings these chores with him.

Last night during dinner (my 2nd of four huge family dinners I'm hosting), I noticed an old beat up suitcase in our dining room--I asked him why that was there. He said it was full of gifts that needed wrapping. It sat there all night. But I'll give him credit, I left wrapping paper and tape out, and he's wrapping away this morning at 8am.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hack to a wonderful Christmas is the belief that you are as worthy of joy and peace as anybody else in your story. If you have young – – very young – – children, they are your responsibility. Not grandparents, not siblings, not aunts. I stopped hosting people who don’t add to the joy of the day years ago and we have wonderful holidays full of the food and drink we like and the music we like and most importantly 18-20 people who all genuinely want to see and spend time together! So much holiday misery boils down to assigning your own happiness a lesser value.

+1

Anonymous wrote:The hack to a wonderful Christmas is the belief that you are as worthy of joy and peace as anybody else in your story. If you have young – – very young – – children, they are your responsibility. Not grandparents, not siblings, not aunts. I stopped hosting people who don’t add to the joy of the day years ago and we have wonderful holidays full of the food and drink we like and the music we like and most importantly 18-20 people who all genuinely want to see and spend time together! So much holiday misery boils down to assigning your own happiness a lesser value.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are your little nips, tucks and shortcuts—white lies and lies of omission—that get you through hosting family, or visiting family?

1) Garage drinks: I have a bottle of Baileys and a bottle of sangria that I keep in the garage. Here and there, I’m filling up my “water cup” with this or that.

2) I have so many small errands to run! Just kidding, I’m fully prepared, but I’ll drive around and look at lights by myself or listen to an audiobook in my car for awhile.

3) The day after Christmas, I’m “visiting a friend from out of town who is staying in Columbia.” Just kidding, I’m going to a spa in Columbia for a three-hour treatment.

I don’t see the need to lie and 2 and 3. The first is the behavior of an alcoholic.

FFS. I'm not the OP, but it's Bailey's, not pure grain alcohol. I don't even think you can get drunk on it unless you're 16 and weigh 90 lbs

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes clueless people needed to be treated like clueless people. Every year my BIL does something super annoying.
--One year he brought a years worth of junk mail to go through and filled all my trashcans. No problem, I just asked him to help me empty them.
--Last year he brought bunch of expired snack foods to our house. Like 200 pieces. I told him just to leave in his car, unless he had some moon pies, which he didn't.
--This year he brought all his laundry. He is 68 years old married to my sister not some young bachelor. I told him, only laundry in the afternoon with so many showers in the morning taxing our smallish hot water heater. He complied. Clueless.

Why didn’t you have him recycle the junk mail?

Yes, we put it in the recycle bin.