Family Christmas Conflict

If you are like most people, having the extended family around during the holidays does not bring joy, peace, and goodwill toward men. Why do we seem to have more conflict around the holidays? Here are some thoughts about why the Christmas season can be a nightmare. Certainly the increase in activities and the running around adds stress to everyone's life. And then you are spending time with relatives who normally don't spend as much time with. They are hanging around your family room, going in your refrigerator, using your bathroom, messing with your TV remote!

Add to this that many people, especially women, go into the holiday season with a higher ideal of what they want the family to be (for us men, we often just bounce from one thing to the next, just tell us where we need to be and when). And when it doesn't meet that ideal, we get upset, down, and look for someone to blame (I can't believe how your parents acted, your family gave the dumbest gifts, can't they ever be on time for anything........). Just spending more time around family members you may not see as much the rest of the year can be a breeding ground for conflict. Conflicting ideas about how the holiday time should be spent (why do we have to go to church again), who spend should spend it with who (what do you mean, you aren't having Christmas dinner with us!), how much money family members spend on each other, these are just some of the flash points.

I think a lot of this has to do with underlying expectations that you and your family members can have. These expectations are often unspoken, but drive the conflict you see on the surface. These expectations can be based on value and importance you place on spending time together or apart, how we should worship, how strongly family boundaries should be respected or crossed, how you handle the kids compared to others in your family, the role of alcohol, just to name a few.

Let's zero in on the relationships that tend to bring the most conflict. When I was in graduate school, my professor for Marriage and Family Counseling often talked about the "Big 3" of marriage conflict, money, sex, and kids. After 25 years of counseling, I would like to add a fourth, IN-LAWS. Dealing with the extended family is another source of difficulty. It is interesting to me that studies of newlyweds, "middlyweds," and "oldlyweds" all state that dealing with in-laws and extended family are a source of frustration and conflict. The in-law relationship that tends to bring the most conflict is the mother-in-law, daughter-in-law relationship. Father-in-law, son-in-law can also create problems, but often ranks second. Again, I think it has to do with the ideals women place on the holidays, but also how time is spent preparing for the holiday time, or being in the kitchen together. Lots of opportunity (remember Mary and Martha going at it, Luke 10:38-42?) for sniping and griping (the guys are probably falling asleep watching football together, another issue to be dealt with!).

From the perspective of the parents/grandparents, after years of having your children be with you, doing what you want, now you have to let them go, establish their own identity, and decide how they want to spend the holiday. That isn't easy! You and your spouse have always done it a certain way, and now a new son or daughter-in-law brings a whole new set of ideas and expectations into the picture. Even if your children are not married, when they get into the teen years, they want to enjoy the traditions you have, but they also desire to be with their peers. This often means negotiating how they spend their time with friends verses you, the parents.

So after all of this, do we give up on celebrating Christmas? No, we just need to recognize that all of us are broken, flawed people. If everyone would simply do what I think they should do, when I think they should do it, and I think it should be done, the world would be a better place! The Bible is clear that we should expect conflict (Matthew 5:23-24, Ephesians 4:26, James 4:1-10). It is the inevitable result of sinful people being around each other. Conflict is found in every relationship, so how do we resolve these conflicts? I will share some suggestions in my next blog. And if you have a good story of extended family being together for the holidays, or a horror story, send it to me at drpaul@insightcounsel.org.

Blessings,
Dr. Paul