Life Kit - Dear Life Kit: I have the same holiday drama with my family every year

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

The holidays bring all kinds of family drama: the sibling who won't compromise, the grandparents who won't travel and different expectations of everything from etiquette to hygiene. Expert negotiator Bob Bordone and therapist Sahaj Kaur Kohli answer questions from Dear Life Kit listeners about how to handle holiday stress at family gatherings.Follow us on Instagram: @nprlifekitSign up for our newsletter here.Have an episode idea or feedback you want to share? Email us at [e-mail] the show and listen to it sponsor-free by signing up for Life Kit+ at plus.npr.org/lifekitLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey, it's Mariel. I have a family member who will not be named, who is a remote hog. When we're gathered together as a fam, they want to watch what they want to watch. Doesn't matter what anybody else wants to watch. It's always been like this. And every year on Christmas, they want to watch a Christmas story, and then unfailingly, some other films that I'm either.

tired of or not interested in. I love them, I do, and I know this is not the most serious of problems, but it drives me up a wall. Somehow, though, realizing that this is going to happen every Christmas takes some of the sting out of it. I don't know if there's a way to avoid stress during the holiday season, but I do think we can minimize it by being more realistic about what to expect. Sahedj Korkoli is a therapist, writer, and founder of Brown Girl Therapy.

A lot of her work centers around the experience of immigrants and their children. There's something about this time of year where like we think about our family and we're like, oh, it's going to be fine. Everything's going to be great this year. It's like we wiped out our memory from last year and I'm like, wait, why do we think that? If it happened in the last five years, why do you think it's going to be different all of a sudden? I agree. No stress, unlikely, but are there ways to manage, minimize, and maybe have a slightly different and more edifying experience or at least less frustrating experience? There is.

That's Bob Bordone, senior fellow at Harvard Law School, an author of Conflict Resilience, negotiating disagreement without giving up or giving in. He and Saheges both say, for starters, a little less stewing in your head, a little more saying what you need out loud, can go a long way. I think more conversation around aligning of expectations and hopes and making sure you do those things that are sources of joy and fun are really important. On this episode of Dear Life Kit, the advice series from Life Kit reporter Andy Tagle,

Sahedge and Bob are here to help you thrive in this season of festive family gatherings. They'll talk about siblings who don't yield, absentee grandparents, alarming hygiene habits, and the myth of not rocking the boat. Okay, question one, let's dig in. Dear Life Kit, every holiday season, there's some drama with my brother. He spends Thanksgiving day with his in-laws and has declared the Friday after Thanksgiving as the day for our family to gather. He expects that we all just wait till Friday to celebrate rather than get together on the actual holiday. My mom and I have told him that this doesn't work for us, but my brother insists on this every year and we're all tired of fighting about it.

What should we do? Now, we're taping this after Thanksgiving, but we can apply this to Christmas, to any holiday that you celebrate New Year's. Signed, I'm ho, ho, ho, ho, over it. Okay, so we're starting off with a, you know, what I consider a classic holiday stress question, which is family travel math, whose house for turkey? Are we traveling here in December? Here for Christmas Eve if you celebrate. New Year's, there are so many demands on your time. Everybody wants dibs. What do you got for us? Anyone feel strongly? Can I just say, just listening to that question made my blog pressure go up? There's a lot of things that stuck with me. But particularly, the use of the word declared, and then my mom and I told, and then he insisted. those words stick with me because nothing here is a conversation and it sounds like there's no listening so i think where i want to start is just from how could we shift this from back and forth proclamations to something that actually feels like a conversation yeah i think bob is right

that there's no sense of co-creation happening in something that is supposed to be joyous And I think about how birth order or gender or family roles might be at play here, you know, is your brother feel entitled because he's older or because he always gets his way? Is there a resentment because you've always, as the sister, had to work around him historically? Is this just one piece of a bigger issue that always happens? Because what's really happening, as Bob is saying, is it's not really just about this instance. It's about the fact that one person's experience is being centered. and that's what's causing the conflict here.

How do we even begin to undo this? If you're in the room with this family, where do we start? Yeah, I mean, as a therapist, I would start with what is everyone's stake in this, like, what is the most important piece of this for you? Is it that it's Thursday? Is it that this person is available? Is it that you travel to this place? Because then that's how we make these choices and how can we find something that incorporates

shared responsibility and also allows for different choices. and a different way to co-create something that honors all of that. I think the other thing that I would just say on this is this is a conversation that has to start before the moment that someone declares. It has to be like a conversation of reset here. Yeah, I agree with that. What can we do to make this feel a little easier next year right now?

That's really good advice. Talk about it early. Talk about it in a not-charged situation. My final question for both of you was, have any template language on pushing back on unreasonable family members or people who are just completely unyielding? You know, one thing that I might say is to really take a step back and say something like this, you know, there's a side of me that actually wants to just fight back with you, and there's a

side of me that feels like it's easier maybe to just cave in, and then there's a side of me that's kind of curious what's motivating this or wants to ask you to say. say more. And just to say, you know there's another side of you because you actually wrote this note to Dear Life Kit, voice that side as well. Yeah, I love that. I would just also say sometimes we can diffuse some of that like entitlement, anger, tension, not always, but sometimes when we're feeling like someone's charged with what they

want or what they expect or what they need, we can sometimes just highlight and reflect back that meaning and that emotion rather than like what they're actually saying so like hey I can tell this is really important to you like let's talk about this now rather than like oh my god why are you deciding for all of us why are you making the decision we can just say okay obviously this is important this is why he's coming at me like this let me reflect that you know and then we can move into the curiosity so um our dear ho ho ho over it uh we wish you well okay moving on question two dear life kit I'm struggling with wanting more from my in-laws. My husband's parents live in Indiana, and we live in California.

We have two school-age kids, and I'd like them to have a stronger connection with their grandparents. But my husband's parents decline our invitations to come visit. They did fly out when my kids were born, but haven't been back in six years. We visit them about three times a year. My in-laws say they are happy with the frequency of our visits, and they say that plane travel is too exhausting at their age. I've also tried to encourage a stronger relationship via video chat, but they routinely miss our bi-weekly scheduled calls. We all feel disappointed, but my husband is resistant to push his parents to engage more.

How can we navigate this? Signed, remote relations. I mean, I just, I really feel for this person, and I think the first thing I always tell people is to make the implicit explicit. In this case, I think that might just be between partners, not necessarily with the grandparents yet. yet, but I do think that there needs to be an explicit definition of what this person wants from these grandparents. Is it literally just to visit? Or is it babysitting? Is it how many hours to spend with a kid, right? Like, get very specific because then we can start to get in the weeds about what they're expecting their in-laws to do with their kids and the role they're going to

have and what they're going to provide to the kids. So we can start to fill in those gaps maybe elsewhere since we know that the grandparents aren't making more of an effort for various reasons, whether because they can't, energy-wise, or maybe they don't want to. I don't know. I like that. So defining it rather than just like this nebulous sadness, let's talk about the specifics. Yeah. Yeah, I'm very struck by your response, which I really strongly resonate with, because my sense also is absolutely starting with the husband to try to understand more the source of his reluctance because the husband is clearly deciding to hold the tension in the relationship with his spouse over raising it with his parents and a real assuring of like what how does that

make each of you feel that was my question too that added layer of complication like when you have certain feelings towards your in-laws you know how I would navigate that conversation with my own parents is really different than how I would navigate it with my spouse's parents if I would navigate it at all. So my question to both of you was, like, what role does the wife have here? Does she have just as much say in this relationship, you know, if the husband isn't interested in having it, you know, it's such a tricky gray area? Yeah, it is. It depends on the relationship this letter writer has with her in-laws.

Does she have, does she feel comfortable enough to do that? And there are ways to do it in a way that's not confrontational, that's not harsh. It could just be, you know, maybe the next time they miss a video call, you could just send a text and say, My daughter, you know, she really missed seeing you. Like, once the next time we can do that, I hope we can plan for something. You know, something that just feels low stakes but is still asserting, you know, and protecting her kids in some way. I also firmly believe that it is the partner's responsibility to be that buffer and to be the main communicator. I mean, I really wholeheartedly agree with all of this.

One conversation you could have is what role would you like to play as grandparents? And here's the role that I would really love for you to have with our children. And in what ways is that aligned or not? Like I personally would rather have a hard conversation where I learned something that feels really sad to me that keep on getting my hopes up and then having my kids always be disappointed. Or realize we do have an alignment of hopes but gosh, we're doing a crudy job of actualizing it.

Yeah, I really agree with that. And I think that this requires a level of grief too, right? Like having those hard conversations accepting what is being said to you in case there is misalignment that requires the process of grieving, which then brings me to my last point, which is kind of like, how do you protect the kids from this, right? The kids are probably like, where's grandma and grandpa? Like, oh, why didn't they pick up?

And so I think it's important for us to think about these other pieces that maybe don't even have anything to do with the grandparents, but it's the emotional impact and then the impact on the kids. You also have to think about just the capacity of the grandparents to have this conversation. And I don't necessarily mean the skill level, although a little bit, there are kind of generational differences about the willingness or to have what might be a more tender emotional conversation. Manage your expectations for what they might be able to give you in that conversation? Yeah. Yeah. I like that a lot. Okay, remote relations.

Hope it helps. More Dear Life Kit after this quick break. Okay, question three. Dear Life Kit, my parents don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. I've pointed it out more than once. but my mom doesn't listen to advice. Over time, I've pointed it out more strongly. She refuses just as strongly.

It's disgusting. It's unhygienic. It's infuriating. And she always does the complete opposite of any criticism. What should I do? Signed potty panic. The letter writer specifically, she specified for peeing for number one in case that matters to you. Okay.

this is a strange question. Who would like to start? I mean, this is a classic example of reactants, right? Like the psychological process of like pushing back when you're being told to do something. And oftentimes we see it in kids. We'll see it in emotionally immature adults. But like at the root of it, someone doesn't want to feel controlled or like have a lack of autonomy. Of course, now we're talking about something that's like, I think many people would agree it's the right and proper and hygienic thing to do to wash your hands after you use the restroom. But clearly this letter writer is pushing and pushing and pushing and trying to convince and win a power struggle and is not getting anywhere. And so I think my main piece of advice would be stop seeing this as a power struggle and now see it as what are you going to do to like maintain your own hygiene and or share meals or be in your mom's home or be around her knowing that this is what she does.

I mean 100%. I love this example because it is. so frequent that people will cite facts and figures to try to persuade someone. And facts and figures are not what's persuasive. And so I do think in this case, probably the right answer is what are the boundaries that I can put that are in within my control, like, I mean, maybe this is a little extreme. You know, I have two separate serving spoons. Maybe that isn't even extreme, right? Things you can control because in this case,

I don't think getting like more scientific data is going to be the answer. Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I was trying to think of like, is there another solve, you know? Is it like reverse psychology, like bringing in the cool ant? Like what could possibly be the solution here? But you're both saying we don't fix the problem. We're just letting this one go. I mean, Andy, I mean, from a negotiator,

In the negotiation perspective, I'll use a really fancy word that's not that fancy. But we say look for patterns of deference in relationships. So I think it is a little bit like, is there someone to whom mom often defers? Maybe it is her doctor. Maybe it is the aunt who's a nurse. Maybe it's somebody else, right? But is there a way to say she doesn't defer to me on this, but she always will defer to somebody else? And then does that person defer to me?

Yeah. I mean, I love that. I mean, I honestly, this one stumped me a little bit because it goes back to what you can and can't control and you can control trying to have this conversation a million times. But what happens, when do you finally say I've tried and nothing's changing? Mm. Yeah. You know, I have one other thought that I think is just in the spirit of brainstorming here. Instead of making, again, what I would call a fact or data-based argument or a, you know,

I'm just going to get a louder approach, could be to make a personal approach. This would mean a lot to me, and I appreciate it's not something you do or think is important, and it matters a lot. It may actually work, and it's coming from a different place. It's not from a place of I know better.

It's from a place that just really means a lot to me. Yeah. And if you're going to do that, anyone listening, just use eye language. I think instead of you're doing this or you're grossing me out, it's like, I feel very anxious or it makes me very uncomfortable. Like, put it back on you as something that, like, you're struggling with instead of it, like, you have to change.

All right. Our last question, question four. Dear Life Kit, my sister-in-law texted to let me know that she's bringing her cat to our family holiday gathering. I'm very allergic, and they know it. It isn't a matter of taking a pill and hoping for the best. Rather than relaxing, I will have to be concerned about where to sit and what to touch and how to limit my exposure. To be clear, we aren't gathering at a home that has a cat.

They are bringing their cat with them. I don't want to make this all about me, and my wife doesn't think I should rock the boat. But I'm worried I could have an allergic reaction for days. I have no idea how to respond. Signed, itching for a fix. As someone who is very allergic to cats, I feel like I'm a biased opinion, so I'm not going to start this one. Well, I shouldn't either, because I'm also very allergic to cats. I don't like cats, so.

Our empathy for the cat person is low. Our empathy for the cat person is low in this group. I mean, there's so many things here. But the thing that most upset me was the wife saying, don't rock the boat. And I really believe that raising conflict in a healthy way is totally legitimate, actually makes relationships stronger and better.

And if we think this is wrong, the boat, it's a real mis-framing. So I would really want this gentleman to not think of this as rocking the boat, but as raising a really legitimate need and concern. Yeah, I totally agree. I think as someone who grew up in an Indian culture and household where I was very much taught as an Indian woman not to rock the boat, I am very familiar with people feeling like saying anything about what you need or want, even if it's appropriate, equal. conflict, rupture, disappointment, which then goes right against the people-pleasing perfectionism

that a lot of people who don't want to rock the boat internalize. I just, I want to acknowledge that it is hard for many people to speak up and that sometimes the only models they've had of speaking up are people who are insistent or aggressive or make demands. And so folks do need language and understanding that speaking up can be done in a kind but also assertive way. And one of the ways could I just suggest to do this, right, is to make it not an either or but a both and, right?

So to be able to say to the in-laws, you know, one of the challenges I think we're going to have with the holidays coming up is it sounds like you need to know that your cat is cared for and maybe you even want to spend some time with the cat. and also my husband is really allergic to cats as a reminder and so we really can't have the cat in the house I wonder if we can brainstorm what needs you have around the cat and also the limitations we have around this allergy

so encompass both sets of needs and then say that's the shared problem we have to work on yeah yeah you know putting myself in this in this person's shoes I'm definitely that person who, if this were me, I would be so uncomfortable. I would just go. I would just go and be allergic. Like, it would, you know what I mean? Yeah.

It is interesting, though, because what I often see, though, is that we're crossing our own boundaries before we even set them and allow someone else to respect them. And what happens is you make a choice one way or the other. You're either choosing the discomfort of going and having an allergic reaction or you're making a choice to say something or do something different, right? We're always making choices. And sometimes when we have this deep-seated conditioning, I can't rock the boat. We're not seeing it as like a sense of autonomy or a choice.

We're saying, I just can't. And it's like you can and you actually do have choice in agency. You're just making the choice that you're used to making versus choosing something different. What a great reminder. Itching for a fix, you and me, we're going to work on it. It is possible to be direct and nice and to deal with your conflicts. Try something new. We're going to work on it this holiday season.

Bob Zahaj, before I let you go, at the end of every episode of Dear Life Kit, we ask our guests for their very best piece of advice. I would love to hear what you've got. Here's something that's been sticking with me from this conversation. Believe in your own agency. We can't foundationally change our families. We can't change every single thing we want about the holidays. But we do have agency and in a capacity to have our own boundaries, but also to influence others. Yeah. I think as individuals, we have more power than we think. We all have spheres of influence. We all have ability to do things for ourselves, for other people, whatever it is. It's not about changing everything. Sometimes it's just about choosing one thing.

Bob Bordone, Zahaj Korkoli. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. This is so good. That was Life Kit reporter, Andy Tagle, talking with Bob Bordone and Sahaj Korkoli. Before we go, do you have more fun? friend who you're always swapping advice with, think they'd like this episode? Why not share it? Spread the word about Life Kit. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Sylvie Douglas. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan and our digital editor is Malika Garib. Megan Kane is our senior supervising editor and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes

Claire Marie Schneider, Lenin Sherburn, and Margaret Serino. Engineering support comes from Cui Lee. I'm Mariel Segarra. Thanks for listening.