Prep your replies, take deep breaths (and don’t apologise for burnt spuds) – how to get through Christmas without falling out with your family

Here’s how to keep calm around the dinner table this year with our advice expert’s guide to defusing festive feuds

Christmas is only universally joyous for children. At some point you grow up and it gets complicated. At least that is how it seems from the letters I receive. They start to roll in around August and although the details and personalities change, the story always goes something like this: “I want to spend Christmas doing X, but my parents/in-laws/siblings want me to do Y. How can I tell them that’s not what I want to do?”

These are people perfectly used to dealing with tricky situations in their professional lives, but Christmas combined with family expectations seems to catapult them back to their childhoods.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/PCu5dw9