Christmas Drama

[sfa]

You've gotten some great advice in this thread. Bottom line seems to be that you really don't want to go to your mother's for Christmas but you don't bear any ill feelings towards your family and you want them to know that you don't dislike them--you just don't want to spend Christmas with them right now. But you're worried that if you don't spend Christmas with them, they'll assume that this means that you don't much like their company, and that makes you feel guilty.

I think KathiCville has a lot of great suggestions for how to graciously bow out of the visit while still showing that you are thinking of them and are part of their celebration. Don't forget to call them when you suspect the merriment will be at a peak. When my sister doesn't make it home for a holiday, we look forward to that conversation--we pass around the phone so we can all talk to her and it feels more like she's there.

I also think that you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Seems to me that YOU are the one judging yourself and finding yourself lacking in comparison to your brothers. Now, obviously, I don't know your family but I know my large and complicated family and I know that it would make me sick if I thought that my unmarried sister thought she was somehow less loved or admired or worthy than my other sister with the perfect kids and husband and house. And we all had to knock some sense into my brother when he stopped attending family events when his marriage was falling apart because he felt like such a loser in comparison to the two of us who were married. How do you know your mother doesn't brag to her friends and your brothers about her adventurous daughter with the independent spirit?

Stay home, plan something fun for yourself, send a nice group gift to your family, call them on Christmas day, plan a visit at a less hectic time, and learn how to value yourself and your strengths and realize that jobs and kids and marriages and houses don't much matter in the grand scheme of things.

Sarah

[Norse]

Just a quick thought on the gift giving - years ago I proposed, and my two siblings gladly agreed, that we would rotate buying for each other. One year we buy for 1 sib and their SO, and the next yr we reverse. It has worked very well and everyone likes not having to buy so much crap.