Holiday Boundaries

If you haven’t already set some boundaries around the holidays, trust me when I say that you need to figure this out quick. If you don’t, you will end up being resentful and overworked, possibly rageful and genuinely ill. I think the trick to boundaries is making it sound like they’re not boundaries at all. Just choices.

Instead of saying, “I have decided I’m only going to attend one holiday party in December and yours isn’t the one,” you simply say, “I’m sorry—I can’t make it” or possibly, “I’m busy that night.” No further explanation should be necessary, but I’m not going to pretend that people won’t press you for one. And in that case, you just repeat what you said before—without explanation. The reason people are pressing you for an explanation is so that they can argue with you about whether or not your reason for not attending xyz is good enough for them. They’re trying to see how firm you are about the boundary. But again, nothing about a boundary in conversation. Just—no.

Women in particular have difficulty saying no. We spend all of our lives being socialized into saying yes to things for other people. We’re told that it’s “natural” for us to be “nurturing” and “empathetic,” which means that if we don’t do whatever we’re asked to do, then something is wrong with us. Deeply wrong.

It took me a LONG time to figure out that it’s actually impossible to say yes to everything. I tried. I think it took me a long time simply because there weren’t a lot of people who cared about the things that I could do for them. But when that happened, it was quickly impossible. It’s impossible for you, too, I guarantee it. It’s just a question of who you’re going to say no to. Is it going to be the people who don’t try to manipulate you and pressure you into doing what’s best for them (and not you) or is it the people who you genuinely want to say yes to?

Are people going to be angry at you when you say no? Yes, they sure are. Will they talk about you behind your back and call you a bitch? They definitely will. And also they will respect you and stop trying to manipulate you as much. At least, eventually they will.

A friend of mine once said, “the magical thing about a boundary is that once I really have it in place, I don’t have to enforce it with other people. Because the real boundary is inside of me.” I think about this all the time. If you think that boundaries are about stopping other people from manipulating you, it’s going to make you more frustrated. If you think about the boundaries as you making decisions about your life that are best for you and yours, you are going to worry less about what people say behind your back. Because you have made a choice and you made the right choice, consequences be damned.

I have a pretty limited tolerance for noise and large group gatherings. Like, I can handle an hour or two maximum of being required to make small talk with people I know almost not at all. I dole this short amount of time out very carefully. I want to choose things that are genuinely important because once I’ve used up that limit, I can’t really get the resources back to push beyond that. I’ve tried. I know. I just become a grumpy person, and then a monstrous one who complains about every little thing. No one wants that version of me to show up anywhere, least of all me.

I’m much more willing to donate my cooking skills to events that I don’t have to attend. I’m happy to send cookies to the school classroom party. I can buy presents if I’m asked to do so. Preferably online. I can send out Christmas cards. I can decorate the Christmas tree and do a turkey dinner. I’m going to be really, really bad at assigning people to things for a party and even worse at getting people to agree on any one get-together choice. I like singing songs in a choir, but I don’t want to dress up in holiday finery and go to a fancy restaurant at a hotel if I can avoid it.

I often blame things on myself. “I’m so sorry I’m just no good at that at all.” People will try to flatter you into agreeing to something that you don’t want to do. “I think you’d be great at this!” said very enthusiastically. This just does not work with me. I care about people’s opinions of me less than most people, I suspect. And I also know how far I can press myself without having an emotional breakdown. As a parent, I also learned that my children had boundaries and that they could not be cajoled into behaving well if they were at their limits. I like to think of myself as a good mother of myself and my own boundaries now.

But my boundaries are not your boundaries. I can’t possibly know what your boundaries are. Only you can know that. Sometimes the only way we know what our boundaries are is when they are pushed too far and we snap. Then it can be useful to make a note to ourselves for the future, when that situation comes up again (it will—the universe is generous like that). It helps that I have almost no FOMO. I don’t regret not going to things afterward. I really do not. I like being home alone a lot. I like going to bed early and watching TV by myself. Mostly, I really, REALLY like not being stressed at the holidays.

The gift I try to give myself every year is to be able to be the kind of person I want to be for the people I care about most in the world and to give myself the gift of caring for my own boundaries. It doesn’t matter if other people agree or disagree about your boundaries. You simply don’t open the door when they knock, or don’t answer the phone or don’t agree to the kind invitation to their holiday party. They actually can’t make you. And that is the most delicious holiday gift of all: self-determination.