Re: Christmas…this happened to us one time. My husband’s family opens one gift at a time and passes it around for everyone to see. Not one gift per person…one gift under the tree. We were there with a 2 1/2 year old…it just didn’t work. Oh…and there were about 15 or more other people there.
Add to that…in the middle of this gift opening, they broke for breakfast, and I’m talking waffles, bacon, eggs, the works.
I told DH that going forward Christmas morning would be at our house and we could drive someplace or fly someplace in time for dinner.
We had the same exact experience when D was young with my H’s family. D ended up falling asleep before opening any of her gifts and people got upset that we couldn’t keep her awake. I think it was six years before we did another Xmas with them and we told them the kids were going first and opening their gifts. Thankfully SIL had her child by then and was in full agreement.
We open gifts now in a round robin style. As we are all adults. But when there are children, that’s a no go. Christmas is about the kids first and foremost!
And we never ever waited again for my sil and bil. And my mil will have substantial snacks. My sil was not interested in spending the afternoon with us. She wanted to come for dinner. So that’s what she did. Despite telling my mil something different.
The other issue was that my sil goes crazy for Christmas. Tons and tons of extravagant gifts. My husband and I have always been much more modest. Her kids were gifted out after opening the presents from them, they had no interest in opening modest gifts from others after the huge opening event.
+100 to those above who have described how they have mindfully worked around inconsiderate behaviors they can predict.
We knew before we even had a child to avoid the chaos of family Christmases. We headed that one off at the pass by informing both sides of the family that, once we had our son, Christmas would be just the three of us and we would visit with family over the holiday season (November-January) as time/desire and our vacation leave permitted. I had enough of the type of rudeness others have described to opt out of allowing others (family or friends) to ruffle my equilibrium decades ago.
I was thinking of this thread and “organization” this morning as I’m tackling sorting nearly 2000 emails in my work “inbox”. I know, I know!!! They aren’t unattended emails, just emails I haven’t taken the time to delete once attended to or put into folders. My home email address? Much more organized.
That’s not so horrible now that you can search on all emails in so many ways (by Sender, keyword etc), not just by folder . As long as you handling new content at top, which is probably bold/unread, I’d consider that organized/efficient. Someday if you have some down time, you can review the old inbox items…. but not tragic if you don’t.
I do not like people to show up early or late. Maybe I need to be flexible, but my friends are very similar to me - planner, on time and have a clean home.
When I arrive early when visiting a friend, I either stop and get a cup of coffee someplace along the way, or sit parked in my car on the street until a few minutes before I’m supposed to be there. While I can’t stand people being late, I understand that being really early is an issue too!
I have a friend who is an extreme planner. She can not have any weekend nights or days without something on the books. Either a BBQ, dinner reservations, beach day. She literally can’t just sit home without plans. She is exhausting about it with our group of friends, constantly trying to get something in the books and it always has to be a day and time that works best for her. More often than not we go with it because we enjoy everyone’s company, but sometimes it just really irritates me and I will decline from time to time. I’m completely opposite. I love when I have a day with nothing planned. She plans stuff so far in advance which I don’t like doing either unless it’s like a vacation. She also will plan something and then last minute make a change to it and that grates my nerves too.
Recently a group of us were trying to a find a weekend before the end of the year for a little getaway. We finally had a date nailed and our friend booked the hotel. Then, a couple weeks later she let us know she can’t do that weekend because she wanted to leave early for Thanksgiving. So now that trip is canceled and it took us several weeks to even lock in that date because we are all so busy. She doesn’t want us to go without her. She doesn’t even offer an apology or acknowledge how it really messed things up.
I like her, I have fun with her but it’s getting to the point where I’m just going to have to stop accepting invitations to plans with her. I’m really good at relaxing at home and being really bored but happy. That’s her idea of hell, so we are really different in that way.
I couldn’t stand to be that, “booked,” all the time. If Covid taught me anything, it’s that I enjoy being at home and can keep myself fairly amused. I am an extrovert and social person, but I also like lots of down time.
Oh, goodness. On being early. My fil was a master of that when he was alive. It was a, “gotcha,” thing for him. He wanted to catch me unprepared. He and mil would say they would come at 4:00 on Friday for a weekend visit but would show up at 2:30. A couple of times they were supposed to arrive for a weekend visit early afternoon after having had lunch, but they would show up at 12:30 without having had anything to eat. Maddening.
I think people who are perpetually early or perpetually late are using that as a way to try and exercise control.
I was good with my own company before Covid. Once covid came, I got even better at it!! I’m an introverted extrovert. I definitely need solitude in order to recharge, but I throughly enjoy socializing when I want to.
This is such an interesting thread. I’m not a planner by nature, but I was raised to be considerate and honor all commitments. When I was young, teens to about 30, I was late a lot. I had a terrible sense of time and I always underestimated how long things would take. It took me forever to learn to read a clock. I had a problem where I would think I could leave home at the time an event started, without factoring in transport. I frequently got times/dates wrong, or lost track of time completely. It’s like I had time dyslexia. My family would tell me that things started 30 minutes before they actually did, and my mom tried setting the kitchen clock ahead.
I wasn’t good at keeping track of important items either. In high school, I parked my car on the drivers Ed range at school, and when they called over the loud speaker for me to come move it, I had locked the keys inside. This happened more than once. In college, I showed up at the airport to fly home for Christmas (my parents lived overseas) without my passport. Amazingly, they let me on the flight (it was 1991) but they wouldn’t let me through customs on the other end, so that was a mess. Someone on this thread mentioned almost running out of gas on the road—I did it three times.
I’m very lucky that my friends and family put up with me! I slowly improved by becoming aware of my shortcomings and developing ways to counteract them like making lists and setting alarms. A big thing is that I started telling everyone in my life to feel free to remind me about anything, anytime. I will never get annoyed or feel that it’s a judgement—I appreciate it!
From the time I was about 40, I can say that I no longer keep people waiting, especially for important events, or if they are particularly punctual people. I play games with myself like telling myself I need to leave 20 minutes before I really do or rewarding myself for being on time to less pleasant things. I never plan to meet someone before 9:00am (unless for a job or my kids) because I know myself too well.
I still resist planning and routine if it’s only going to affect me or people who won’t mind. I often “plan” dinner at 6:00pm, and I absolutely love unstructured days with no deadlines. I’m impossible about Christmas because I feel like it’s about 3 weeks too early. It’s too close to Thanksgiving and it always sneaks up on me. Then I have to scramble because my family loves all the details of decorations and traditions. Actually, I could do some Christmas planning this weekend and then I’ll feel so organized!!
I sort of plan for us - big picture - but we’ve gotten used to changing the Plans as we have a whim if we see something better. This is just us though - our personal wanderings or maybe with our kids who do the same. When we make commitments with others, we keep them, on time. I can’t fathom doing otherwise. I can’t think of anyone we hang around with who does otherwise, so after reading this thread, I feel fortunate.
But for my in-laws and even my own parents, showing up early was pretty much expected. We’d arrive at my in-laws on time, or heaven forbid, 15-30 minutes late due to traffic around DC on a 4 hour drive, and all h— would break out. Once MIL even threw a potted flower we got her for Mother’s Day back at me in the car getting the dirt all over because we weren’t there when we said we would be. In that case we had spent a little extra time at H’s brother’s place, but still, we weren’t even 30 minutes later than we had expected to be there and she knew we were going to BIL’s first.
Now we try to tell FIL we’ll be there half an hour to an hour later than we really think we’ll be there. He’s quite happy when we walk in early. We did that with my mom too.
I guess we adjust to what others want, if we know what others prefer.
As my dad got older, the earlier he would arrive. For him it was an anxiety thing of being caught in traffic. He would be hours early. Mom was embarrassed but it couldn’t be changed.
I now live in a neighborhood where people are very early to your parties. My husband and I have arrived on time and been the last people there. These neighbors are all retired and older than us.
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