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Dear Melanie,

Christmas is coming up and my boyfriend and I got into a fight because he wants us to go to his family’s house and I want to go to mine. His family lives in New Jersey and mine lives here in Connecticut so we can’t do both in one day, but I’d like to figure out a way to compromise. I went with him to his family’s Easter celebration and I went to visit him tons of times over the summer and he doesn’t ever want to budge and come to me; I’m not asking for him to only spend time with my family but there has to be some agreement we can come to.

-Holiday Lover

Dear Holiday Lover,

It seems like you guys need to come to an agreement about all holidays, being that we are in the middle of the holiday season. You can either tell him now which holidays you want at your house or you can discuss alternating and see which ones he absolutely wants with his family and which ones you don’t want to budge on and decide from there.

Another option is for both of you to go separately to your respective families’ celebrations. Just because you guys are a couple doesn’t mean you need to spend every holiday together; if you guys are in it for the long haul then I’m sure you’ll have other opportunities to fight over whose Christmas feast you’re going to.

Holidays are supposed to be about family and love; people cause unnecessary stress on themselves and others by fighting over things that really don’t need to be fought over. If you guys can’t come to a decision without fighting, then just go to your family’s and let him go to his. You both will enjoy yourselves more if one of you isn’t being forced to be somewhere you don’t want to be.

Xoxo,
Melanie