The Holidays by the end of the year are a time for meeting a lot of family members that we may not have seen for a long time. For a lot of people, this a joyful moment of relaxation where they can enjoy the company of those they love. For others, this can also be a stressful period, when tensions, trauma, and insecurities related to family relationships emerge, often in unexpected ways. Different people experience those events in vastly different ways.

Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?

What does Christmas (as well as other events with a component of "forced" social gathering) mean to you?

How did you manage it this year?

Is this usually a happy time for you? Why?

I'll try to be brief.

I lost my older brother March this year. Barely a year after I moved to the same city as him, he passed away from a bacterial infection he got in a hospital. He went for stomach surgery, everything went fine. Suddenly, a month later, this bacterial infection got to his brain and he was gone.

It was a big shock to our family and things are not the same anymore. My parents are old, mother is 73, father is 78.

My mother is simply just existing these days. She is barely eating and is now weighing 48kgs (105 lbs). She needed to go to the hospital a couple of days ago because she was so weak.

She already had problems before the death of my brother. She is losing her eyesight and despite all the treatments, it does not get better. She can see up close, she can use her smartphone, but it's hard for her to recognize people if they are not right up in her face.

She has three hernias and can't stand too much. She can get up to make breakfast or coffee, but after 20 minutes has to lie down because of pain. It does not help that she barely eats and is getting weaker every day.

She does not want to go to a psychologist. She just says she is not crazy and won't go. I tried contacting one that can go to her house, but she says she simply won't open the door. My father is trying to convince her, but I know it won't change.

I can understand her and I can't see what more can I do. She never had much going for her, now her oldest (and dearest) son is dead all of a sudden, she has all this physical pain going on for years, eyesight getting worse and I can understand the fact that she simply don't care for it anymore. She simply lost her appetite.

She is going to doctors to take exams, she did a battery of tests and everything seems fine. Even her cholesterol which was problematic is fine.

He prescribed something to help with her appetite and vitamins, but it is not the first time. Don't think this will change much.

I don't know really what I'm asking here. I sometimes think I should do more, but there is already my father which lives with her and my other brother who is there in the same city. I already tried sending a psychologist to help her at home, I don't know what more can I do.

I go visit every two or three weeks (i am going for christmas and new year) and she is the same way. 80% of the time lying down in the couch, she gets up to make food or coffee, go sit in the front of the house for some time, then it's time to go to bed. This is repeated every day.

It's not like it was much different before, but at least she ate some food. There was a day that she just ate an apple and that was it.

She goes out of the house if she needs, like going to the doctor or groceries, but avoids for any other reason.

The whole narcissism/NPD thing gets talked about so much these days. I don't know if my father has that. But he no doubt has many of those qualities as he is extremely self absorbed, has been neglectful throughout my life, and is incapable of looking inwards.

There's a lot of back story but hopefully it's enough to say that I have had a strained relationship to my father since I came out as a transgender woman 5 years ago. Everyone else are able to use my new name and gender me correctly, like nobody ever makes a mistake anymore (and mistakes are okay in the beginning because it's new and confusing for everyone). But he continuously says the wrong thing and at times also does it on purpose if he's angry with me for whatever reason.

So the last time I saw him was 3 months ago for a day of golfing with him and my brother, where the first few words he said to me outside of hello was calling me "drengerøv" - literally "boyass". The closest word in English is probably something like boy scout, asshole, or a gendered version of smart-ass. He wanted to get back at me for saying "hi old man" which I feel is a pretty normal thing to say to one's father and also he is 75 years old? But sure, maybe it was cheeky of me. I can see that. So I would have laughed if he called me a bitch or something. But his response was the final drop in the bucket for me because this is after so many conversations about deadnaming and misgendering these last several years. Months do pass without error, but then something like this happens out of the blue time and time again. For those of you who are also transgender, you know how traumatizing it can be. I have nightmares about him.

So anyway the reason for my need to rant here is that three weeks ago, he texted that he wanted to come visit me, but I wrote back that I don't want to see him on account of how it went last time. He didn't reply until now, and I am just kind of in disbelief about how much of a non-apology it is. And it brings me back to the narcissism thing and something called DARVO: deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. He is always the victim no matter what. If he deadnamed or misgendered me in the past, it is always "well I was tired," or "I am very stressed," never an actual apology. And sure enough, this time it isn't either - he actually did use the word apologize a couple of times, but it felt like it was in the context of him feeling bad and being depressed about it rather than truly sorry.

He for example wrote "I spoke to my psychologist and he fully understands that I feel like shit about being rejected by you" and "I am so nervous and afraid of doing the wrong thing again".

Do you notice how it's all about him? Blaming me for rejecting him? How terrible and awful it is for him? In the words of Emily Blunt... You don't get to commit sin, and then ask all of us to feel sorry for you when there are consequences. I just don't fucking care. I'm done feeling sorry for the man who is supposed to be a father figure. Trying to make me feel bad about his fuckups is just... ugh.

And knowing him, he probably wasn't honest with his psychologist about the situation in the first place because he always engineers situations to make himself look good. Even at his brother's funeral, my uncle, his speech was about being the boss of a hundred people in a company back in the day while kind of making fun of how silly it was that my uncle was a communist. My father is just completely incapable of being honest with himself and truly reflect about his behavior. These are all the same reasons my mom divorced him 10+ years ago, feeling very neglected by him. Even this he managed to years later turn on its head and refer to as "the time your mother failed me", like it is just ironic how he always does this and also unbelievable that he cannot himself realize it.

So I think I'm pretty much done at this point. I almost always have to take the high road while he just continues to do his own thing without much of a care in the world until the consequences finally catch up with him. Everything about my relationship with him the last 5 years has been awful. Even if I wasn't queer, he still wouldn't truly care about me - anytime we've had lunch or something, we only ever talk about him. He would only ask how I was doing to be polite. It got to the point that if we talked on the phone, I would time how long it took for him to start talking about himself and it was rarely more than half a minute. One time, I didn't even manage to answer, like he didn't even pause after asking the question before going on to talk about his own shit.

Another great example of this idiocy is when I woke up from anesthesia earlier this year after having triple jaw surgery. One of the first things he tried to talk about was how lucky he was that he found a good parking spot while I was literally in the middle of throwing up blood. I had tears in my eyes and my stomach was convulsing and I looked probably the worst he's ever seen me, and yet all he does is wrinkle his nose in disgust, turn to my mom (who, being sane, of course completely ignored him) and smiling while bragging about something as mundane as parking. Who does that? What the fuck!?

I have been typing for more than an hour at this point so it's probably unhealthy to continue lol, sorry, and thank you for reading my rambling if you actually made it this far.

We’re finding it increasingly difficult find meaningful time to spend with the kids. They’re teens but still want to do stuff together and yet with all the extracurricular and us working it’s hard to just be together. They also have their own preferences and sometimes it’s hard to find common ground.

Was hoping to find some inspiration and ideas. Thanks in advance.

A few of you mentioned in comments to my previous question that changing your mind could or did affect relationships. To those who did go through such a significant perspective shift, please share your story!

This question is particularly regarding kids ages 5-12. I've read some great tips, and I'm wondering what you have found to help. Here are a few:

1. Emphasize boundaries with frequent caretakers, such as grandparents and neighbors.
2. Share science facts, religious traditions, and a variety of creation myths with young kiddos to neutralize Bible stories.
3. Talk regularly about your own ethics and values.
4. Explain others' beliefs and contextualize those beliefs as part of their culture.

Our extended family lives in the same city and we're always getting together (brother/sisters-in-laws, their kids). So basically our generation and our kids. Probably 13-15 of us.

We meet maybe once or twice a month, but whenever we meet, kids just go do kids things, dads go over here, moms go over there. One of the dads invariably falls asleep, one or two of the kids kind of mull about not quite fitting in here or there.

I was wondering if any of you had any ideas for something that can be done together that might help build memories or at least structure some time so that there's meaningful interaction and we can get to know each other better instead of defaulting to whatever is least effort.

The only constraint is that is has to be that it's an in-home, indoor activity suitable for teens/pre-teens.

Title says it all. I'm only in my late 20s and I've been his primary care taker for most of my adult life. There isn't any other person I've spent more time with in my entire life. I'm trying to prepare myself for when the moment he's gone and I know it's going crush me all the same.

This will be my greatest loss in life so far. I know everyone goes through something like this. What did you do when a moment like this came? What did you do when it felt like you couldn't get up? I have know idea how I'm going to get through this, I just have to believe I will.

EDIT: Thank you for all your kind words and we'll wishes. My dad passed away September 23, 3:30 PM local time with his boys by his side. I'll love him and miss him every single day.

Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner. My wife and I usually host a small gathering for my wife’s immediate (mom, dad, sister, and grandparents) family at my house. Last year my sister-in-law asked whether she could bring her fiancé, which we were absolutely happy to have him over.

This year however, things are weird. They just got married within the last month, and I got a text from my SIL letting me know that she invited her mother-in-law to my house. I don’t have any problems with the woman, but I found it to be really rude for her to invite someone over to my house without even asking if it was okay.

My SIL is very self-centred most of the time. She expects people to just do whatever she wants to do, and rarely contributes anything. Usually for Thanksgiving I will cook the turkey and a couple of sides, and everyone else is responsible for bringing something (sides, dessert, buns, appies… anything they feel like bringing). She never brings anything except a container to bring leftovers home with her. She is like this with many other things. She has come camping with us and not brought any food for herself, because she is just assuming that we are going to feed her.

I love my wife’s family, but my SIL drives me insane. I find it incredibly rude that she just decided to invite someone to my house without asking. I don’t know what to do though. I feel like I need to call her out on it, but I also don’t want to ruin Thanksgiving.

I guess I have two questions:

Am I wrong to be upset about this?

If I’m not wrong, then what do I do about it?

After trusting my nana to pass on the details in anticipation of a small family gathering, this has turned into something else! I'm currently smoking a bunch of chicken drumsticks over maple wood chips but some of my lower effort choices going into battle today are:

Chocolate sorbet. I love this one because it's stupidly easy to make, can be made way in advance and is a naturally vegan/ dairy free option. Blending the mixture at the end is an essential, unskippable step. I used 80% cocoa solids and this time I've replaced the Grand Marnier with some 42% chocolate rum.

Ready made dolmedes from a tin. Another easy vegan/ veggie option, assuming you just get the ones stuffed with rice and herbs.

Caprese skewers. Easy veggie canapé with only some assembly required! Baby plum tomato, fresh basil leaf and mini mozzarella pearl on a skewer. Maybe drizzle over some pesto. Looks fancy arranged on a slate serving tray.

Boiled potatoes with really, really good butter. Cultured, unpasteurised stuff. It helps that these are potatoes from my garden too, instantly made fancier with the addition of fresh herbs.

My spouse and I went to dinner with my parents in law tonight. Father-IL can be hard in Mother-IL generally speaking, often picking on her and 'teasing' her. Mostly criticism. It can make things pretty uncomfortable, but as mid-westerners do, rarely my spouse or the other family people speak up unless it's to rib back in order to deflect or make it stop. FIL and MIL are both in their late 70's, so aging, and conservative catholic, so daily drinkers. We went to dinner tonight to celebrate my MIL's birthday. FIL is generally stressed out due to drama with his siblings/health issues/he's just a super stressed out person, and he ordered something in a wrap and asked for no onion. Meal came and there was onions. FIL complains passively to us and we say he should say something. He says, "no, no, no."

Server came and asked, "how is everything?"

FIL says "it's fine, it's fine"

MIL starts to say, "well..."

FIL interrupts with, "shut your mouth, MIL!"

Awkward silence...eat dinner when it comes...everyone is trying to act like nothing happened.

We finish dinner and we're finishing our drinks and MIL asks, "myspouse, are you okay?"

My spouse says stilted, "yeah, I'm fine."

MIL says, "world, are you okay?"

And out of me erupted, sternly but not with a yell, towards my FIL, "it's not okay to say 'shut your mouth' yo your wife."

Everyone got quiet. Then FIL tried to defend himself and say, "I've rarely ever said that, something something, I don't need this."

Then he shut me down so I just said, "heared, heard" and left.

He said in the car on the way home, "maybe I over reacted, but..."

And I said, "I shouldn't have said anything, I know you're under a lot of stress."

Now everything is awkward and strained and quiet. I don't need to be adding more to an already stressful life situation for older folk whom I do care about, but I couldn't hold my tongue. How does one strike balance in a situation like that?