My parents and sister always want to have Christmas with us, because my husband and I have small children and apparently Christmas is “rubbish” with no kids (maybe I should charge an entrance fee … ). But my husband says, bluntly, they just ruin it.

My husband and I love Christmas, my wider family do not. He hates the way they never help out or appreciate our efforts; they criticise our gifts (what we get the kids or how much we spend), they judge our children (they open the presents “too fast” or forget to say thank you), and are just generally quite negative to have around. This is hard at the best of times but Christmas is one of our favourite times of the year. We always wind up feeling robbed of what should be a wonderful memory.

With my parents getting on in years, do I suck it up and risk ruining Christmas for my kids and husband? Or do I be the bad guy and keep that boundary, saying they can’t come for Christmas Day but can come on Boxing Day? Usually when this is suggested they get really cross and I feel terrible because it’s so unfriendly.

Please help. I love my parents and don’t want to regret not having them with us for Christmas in years to come, but I dread it and there’s always a disagreement. We have little to do with my husband’s family.

This is a problem so many people have, and I feel for you. I decided early on in the game to make Christmas an ‘us’ only affair where possible although this tradition has changed since my father died.

I ask psychoanalyst Professor Alessandra Lemma, who says this is a problem she hears a lot about, so you’re not alone. “The decisions one makes around Christmas are deeply evocative of early family dynamics: did we feel included or excluded, was being in the family a joyous, playful or painful experience. Rivalries and old grievances can also re-emerge – all these are often at the root of it.”

It’s never a bad idea to go back in order to move forward: what were Christmasses like for you and your husband as children? What are the expectations here?

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Prof Lemma is also interested in your husband’s family and what was going on there – why do you have “little to do” with them? She also wonders “for whom is having your family round a bad experience? Would you feel like this if your husband were more on board?”

I feel you’re saying how your husband feels to further underline how you also feel, but Prof Lemma isn’t so sure if the main driver is you or your husband in this, and “if the conflict is with your parents/sister or your husband”. Something to think about.

So why do we find it so hard to just say “look, I want to have Christmas on our own?” It’s “because we have to emotionally juggle multiple allegiances: to our families of origin and to our current families,” says Lemma. “This confronts us with conflicting needs and wishes. Especially when we have to set a boundary to protect one set of relationships, saying ‘no’ to the others may leave us feeling we are harming people we both love and find difficult. Reconciling loving and aggressive feelings is hard work and may leave us feeling guilty.”

When we look at it like this, it’s not a surprise so many find it challenging, and why you are struggling.

So what can you do? I think it’s important to acknowledge that unless you can do what you want with no guilt – and that doesn’t seem possible – whatever you do is going to make you feel uncomfortable so it’s the level of discomfort you can most bear. “It sounds like there may be two possible regrets you could be left with,” says Prof Lemma, “that you are left wishing you had invited your parents and sister or that you ‘inflicted’ an unhappy day on your family. Which would be the greatest regret? If you set a boundary it may involve accepting not everyone is going to be pleased with you and you may have to bear being ‘the bad guy’.”

In your shoes I would invite your parents and sister in the week before Christmas (not Boxing Day because then it just hangs over you) and make it into a positive. Something like: “We are spending actual Christmas on our own this year but we’d love to see you before, so could you come from 20-23 December” or whatever dates suit. That way it’s clear, they don’t have to worry about travelling over Christmas itself, the house will be decorated and festive and you can have Christmas with your husband and children. If they choose to get cross at such an invitation, or see it as unfriendly, that it’s their responsibility.

Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem to [email protected]. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.

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