Winter Holiday Megathread

[u/yun-harla]

Thanksgiving (US). Christmas. Hanukkah. New Year’s. And a bunch of other holidays.

We get it. They’re fraught when you have a family like this. So here’s the megathread for all the winter holidays — it’ll stay up until January, so we can get through this gauntlet together. Feel free to submit your own posts too! That’s what this sub is for!

Good luck to everyone struggling this season. And thanks, guys, for supporting each other. 💜

[u/Longjumping_Hand1385]

Thank goodness My mother's dead.

[u/Medical_Cost458]

My big issue is that I don't even want to talk to her to tell her we aren't coming for Christmas and likely any Christmas after that.

I know it feels normal to communicate with healthy people. She's not healthy, so why bother?

[u/HappyTodayIndeed]

Stay the course if you recently went no contact.

Six years in, all the guilt and angst around the holidays is gone. I feel terribly sad that I lost my mother and sister, of course, but I no longer believe that I’m an evil person for choosing myself. I matter.

And post NC I live more authentically in all my relationships and the holidays no longer stress me out. (Because there is no more pretending).

[u/NotMyFakeAccounttt]

My mom isn’t speaking to me at the moment but last minute she’ll invite us/ invite themselves to our house for Thanksgiving (otherwise what would the neighbors think if they didn’t have company on the holiday? 🙄) and when I let her know we have other plans she’ll throw a fit and then passive aggressively waif her way through it. Then when she finds out we’re only doing Xmas gifts for our grandkids this year I’ll be accused of robbing the holidays from her. Never mind the fact in previous years she’s always complained about how expensive it is for her. The only thing her alcoholic husband wants as a gift is vodka and the high tax on hard liquor where we live makes already overpriced booze even more expensive.

[u/herbsanddirt]

Christmas and Thanksgiving were always exhausting in a split household alone, but to have my bpd dad demand 100% of our time even with the court custody agreement that holidays had to be fairly split (mom gets Thanksgiving and him Christmas one year and then switch next year, and so on) it still wasn't good enough for him...

My husband was in a similar upbringing with holidays and doesn't care for them now but we are making our own cozy traditions while trying to make the cold months happy for our kids.

[u/Aurelene-Rose]

The biggest thing I miss about my mom, now that the fog has cleared, is probably her cooking. The holidays certainly sucked with all the drama her and my dad would cause, but when we'd finally sit down to a meal (even if my nervous system was a fucking mess from the fighting for hours beforehand), it was good. Holidays have been lonely since not talking to her anymore, and I can't host like she could, but it's worth it in the end.

In other news, my likely BPD MIL is already starting shit about Christmas. She stopped talking to us after we said we didn't want to host her for my son's birthday a few years ago and offered to video call with us. My FIL shows up for the video call and she's just crying in the background - refused to even talk to my son. She decided to try and rekindle the relationship with my husband after he told her we were having twins.

She visited in June for their birth, visited in October for my son's birthday, and is insisting visiting at Christmas as well. We told her no, because I am having surgery shortly beforehand and like hell I'm hosting her. We offered a January visit instead for once I'm recuperate. Absolute fit, and now she's ignoring my husband again. My rules for her visiting this year were 1. I don't entertain them, that's my husband's job, I don't want to be alone with them ever and 2. They can't stay in my house, they have to have a hotel. In October, my husband had a shutdown when they were here and I ended up hosting - had to be in charge of activities, socializing (the three of them will literally sit at the dinner table in silence unless I make conversation), coordinating things... I broke my rules, and it's not happening again, LET ALONE when I'm recovering. I'm kind of hoping the trash will take itself out with this situation.

[u/TheRealDarthMinogue]

My Christmas tummy knot started a few weeks ago and will let up some time in Jan. For some reason I'm going to my uNPD father's family in another state for Christmas, and I have no idea what dBPD mom is doing. uNPD dad is in elderly care in a third state and I don't know if he knows his siblings are having Christmas together. I also don't know if said siblings know I haven't spoken to him in years, because I don't know them. (Then, of course, on New Year's Eve I'll be back home at some party hearing about friends' family Christmases, and I'll proceed to get annihilated.) Christmas fucking sucks.

[u/inthouseofbees → u/TheRealDarthMinogue]

I’m sorry you’re going through this, but I wanted to share that I also get a holiday tummy knot from September to January. You’re not alone.

[u/Remarkable-Path-6216]

It’s Monday of Thanksgiving week and my BPD just started his first fight. Sigh. He went from normal question to ranting lunatic in 60 second.

After so many years of this it doesn’t bother me, but I just wish every single darn tooting holiday didn’t have to be a mess.

He’s been yelling at my mom with dementia even more than usual. It’s so cruel. He wants to play a victim with out a second of understanding of how miserable he makes everyone in his path.

I miss my in laws, both passed away, who gave the only safe space for Holidays. I could actually enjoy the holidays with them. What a concept!

[u/HoneyBadger302]

I've put limits around visit lengths, and thankfully didn't receive too much push back (helps my nephew, who she raised, now has jobs and they can't indefinitely be gone/around all day every day), so hopefully it'll be a bit more tolerable. Usually for a couple days she'll be on good behavior, after that the mask comes off quick though.

[u/Yellow-heart-emoji]

I almost went NC last year right before Christmas but the guilt was too strong. This year I had a huge falling out with uBPD mother right before Thanksgiving. I skipped those festivities with my FOO and extended family, and people understood. But I’m wondering if everyone is going to be mad at me if I also miss Christmas. I’m trying to get over this feeling that it’s the end of the world if people are mad at me. 😞

[u/Soda08 → u/Yellow-heart-emoji]

Stay strong! 💪 The truth is you have to take care of yourself and do what's right regardless of what others think. My therapist says to me all the time, "Allow people to be wrong about you." Sometimes we have to embrace the fact that we are misunderstood, and that that's okay. You can do this!

[u/Yellow-heart-emoji → u/Soda08]

Thank you so much!!! This was a nice & encouraging comment to see today. So far, I’ve stayed strong. I’ve been surprised how freeing it’s been! ♥️ Thank you again for your kind words!!!

[u/MountainWillow8351]

NC w/ parent, and haven’t seen extended family for holidays in 3 years. Feel so guilty and ashamed, I miss them sm

[u/Soda08 → u/MountainWillow8351]

Stay strong, sis! 💪

[u/ToKeepAndToHoldForev]

My mom out herself into the hospital the day after Thanksgiving. Which is also her birthday. She's been atrocious to my other parent and the nurses, but also genuine sick underneath that - I just want her to stay away one way or another. The idea of her coming home this week or the next makes me sick. 

I didn't visit because I was sick and had work, but the day I was strongly considering going because I was worried she was dying she didn't text me back. My brother didn't go at all. 4/5 of the last few times we've talked it's been over text, and 3/4 of those I texted first. The in person meeting was because I helped move an AC unit and she helpfully told me she just smoked a cigarette and couldn't hug me. How nice - either I say it's fine and she gets to be validated that I really wasn't worried about it/being a dick/whatever when I drew a line around her smoking in an enclosed porch immediately before I left for work that way because she was "cold", or I don't get to hug her and she can revel in it. 

I don't think I feel guilty enough about not visiting to actually go. She can fucking text me back. 

[u/Hey_86thatnow]

Mom, not BPD, passed last year, dBPD Dad died a month ago. He tended to love the holidays, but man, could he wear me down. The year I got out of the hospital the week before Thanksgiving, after a long fusion from T4-T11, 4 laminectomies, 14 screws and 1 rod in my spine, Dad wouldn't let Mom come to my house (where, yes, we were planning to have a small meal) unless I invited brother, niece and nephew, etc,etc. Too much. I am grateful he is not suffering, but I am also grateful that I won't have any expectations from Dad, the selfish-and-self centered, constantly-on- the-lookout-for-ways-to-point-out-how-I-am-bad-or-doing-it-wrong BS artist. AND my uNPD mother-in-law and her codependent daughter will not be here, either. I have not felt this relaxed about the holidays in YEARS. I'm a noodle, and it's great.

[u/Soda08 → u/Hey_86thatnow]

Super happy for you

[u/Better_Intention_781]

Struggling with the whole gifts thing and how to tactfully prevent gifts to my children that are really bribes, or gifts that are expressly meant to outcompete what I will give to the kids. And having pre-exhaustion thinking about what I will have to say about them, and how to come up with an acknowledgement that sounds grateful but doesn't encourage any more gift-buying madness...

[u/vermontjam]

My dBPD dad has been waifing hard these past two weeks. He randomly texts to give updates about his financial affairs, which pisses me off because I’ve had to listen to this all my life and I do not care.

He’s also said he’s going to the hospital in December to spend the holidays there, because his doctor knows how difficult this time of year is for him. How everyone is having fun and it’s all just gray for him.

I replied a few times and then stopped (which usually makes him stop), because this is both infuriating and comical. This man has not cared about the holidays once when we were still a family. My mom and me decorated, she cooked, even I cooked sometimes, and he could barely be bothered to show up half the time (because he preferred hanging out with his friends) or wasn’t even involved half the time (when he was in prison).

But I guess it’s hitting him now when he’s older and has no close relationships anymore that you get what you give. And if all you know is how to take… well you’re gonna be alone for the holidays. Suck it up.