Dear Not Wrong,
My mother and father divorced years ago. My father has happily remarried and my mother has not found much luck in love, or really in other areas of her life. Early in the divorce, my sister and I started spending Christmas Eve with our dad and Christmas Day 2 hours away with my mom’s family. Now I’m in a long-term, committed relationship, so I have another set of parents to see on Christmas Day and I moved an hour further from my mom’s family and I just don’t want to make that trip. My mom takes this as me not wanting to see her and since I maintain the plans with my dad, she thinks that I love my dad more. How do I make everyone happy?
-Unhappy Holidays
If you can’t make everyone happy, just blow ’em up. If you don’t have the heart to go truly nuclear, you can settle for merely locking yourself in a room and spending the holidays alone. I mean, if you can’t do all of the things, why try any?
It’s really important to remember that we, Americans (I’m just going to assume you’re American, because I am and so all good people are), do not negotiate with terrorists. Really, we don’t negotiate, period. So the most important thing to remember is that you cannot yield even a little on anything. You must get things exactly the way you want or else get nothing. Some people go to multiple houses on Christmas, but that is NOT what I’d advise for you. That is ridiculous, letting other people’s happiness dictate your life? Unacceptable!
In short: You need to do exactly what you want exactly when you want to and ignore the consequences. Consequences are for losers!
As a cautionary tale of what happens when you ignore my excellent advice, Unhappy Holidays wrote back with what they did and how it turned out:
Dear Not Wrong,
Your advice was awful, so I just talked it out with my family and decided to 1) begin switching Christmas Eve and Christmas Day from year to year because I have more time on the Even than on the Day and 2) Go to my mom’s early, before she goes to her dad’s and then spend the rest of the day with my girlfriend’s family.
Thanks for nothing,
Unhappy Holidays
Well, Unhappy, this sounds like you negotiated, which means you lost. Loser.
I want things my way and for everyone to be happy about it was originally published on I’m Not Wrong
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