Dear Carolyn: I am recently divorced, with two adult sons, 19 and 23. One son is autistic and nonverbal. I have one local brother and sister. Both are single. My brother’s home is a mess, and my sister is not far behind, plus she doesn’t cook. Neither has enough seating or dishes. I now live in a small apartment, but I can make it work.
I have always hosted holidays and special occasions. I enjoy the prep. But I get very little help. My brother sits in the recliner and reads the newspaper. My sister chats with one son and watches football. I clean up, make “to go” bags and keep an eye on the son with autism. He needs supervision. His brother will occasionally jump in and help him.
Last year, I had a knee replacement, so my sister and I agreed to go to a restaurant for Thanksgiving. Well, it was loud, my son wandered off to find a quiet place, and the service was not ideal. I ended up paying for the whole meal because we had not decided ahead of time how to split the bill.
I have asked my sister for help several times, but she seems to forget from occasion to occasion. Or she asks a million questions about what needs to be done. Even just pizza and cupcakes is complicated with her. Where are the utensils, matches, napkins, toothpicks — yes, toothpicks for the cupcakes. Or give me a sec, I’ll help at halftime. I’ve even organized my own birthday dinner.
Family is very important to me. My mom and aunt had special holiday traditions. How can I lower my expectations? Do I stop hosting and sit home alone?
— Hostess
Hostess: I won’t lie, your tableau makes that sound tempting.
But there’s a middle option, isn’t there? As long as we anchor it in each of the realities you spelled out? Addled sister, inert brother, no clean apartments but yours, one intermittently helpful son, one son needing supervision, your heart’s own ache to make a nice holiday of it within your limited energy and patience — and dining out won’t work.
It’s connect-the-dots but with no preset solution. Fun to figure out, if you squint.
How about this. First, assign a menu item to your sister — for every single occasion at your home, so it isn’t complicated, forgettable or floggable to pulp by questions. Eventually. Maybe. She can be the beverage person, dessert person, appetizer person — whatever you trust her to bring ready-made to your apartment and thereby scratch off your list.
Next, stop letting the able grown men off the hook. “Plus she doesn’t cook,” you say. And they? Not even a hope of an expectation? Nuh-uh.
Recliner bro gets a potluck assignment, too. (We’ll get to your able son in a bit.)
Hold your siblings to this. No filling the gap from what they don’t bring. The simplicity of the assignment is your leverage against their conditioning.
Each of your siblings gets an assigned task during the festivities, too — also on repeat, every gathering, so there’s no what-where-huh? The thing they’ll actually do is the thing you assign: “No help, no feast. I have to delegate the work.” Finally. Right? “Here’s where you volunteer — a.k.a., have some say in your assignment.”
This is a great time, I should mention, to lock your inner perfectionist in a closet.
Next, for other meal components, do whatever prepping makes you happy. Precook what you can, skip or cheat on some courses. Or order the whole damn thing premade, quitting on everything but togetherness. The restaurant concept at your own table has price points from budget to bougie.
Seem like a plan? More shortcuts, less freeloading and zero fussy instructions, all in your home. And the streamlining will free up attention for your son who needs it.
Now: Consider using some attention savings to do your other son a lifelong solid. Make these into teachable holidays, while he’s still in your clutches (you mention no separate home). The lessons being:
1. You and your siblings are cautionary tales. There is such a thing as too much functioning. Also, too little. They are typically found together, a kitchen and a recliner apart.
2. Just-right functioning is an accumulation of awareness and skills. If he’s the 23, then refer to No. 1 and apologize for not making him a fully participant co-host sooner.
3. These skills aren’t only for holidays, or for guests. They’re for himself — since our own care and feeding takes work, to do it well — and for maintaining his reciprocal place in any community.
Family is a great reason to pass along as much of your tradition and prep routine as he’ll absorb. But teach it more so as vocabulary for the willingness and ability to carry his own weight. Don’t launch him into the world, when the time comes, without some context-informed sense of that.
Today’s hosts soon yield to tomorrow’s.
But don’t knock the solo, either. Even the tiniest, quietest of holidays on your terms can be a glorious thing.
The post Carolyn Hax: In their family, it’s holiday tradition for siblings to do squat
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