Anxiety Aunt: Help! My siblings and I can’t agree on a plan for Christmas Day and it’s causing friction

Dear Aunty, My family cannot decide what to do for Christmas and it is causing no end of strife. One sibling wants to host because they have a pool but my other sibling argues it is their turn. No one is too keen on that because they live in the hills and we are all in the city so we would need to drive and forgo Christmas bubbles or beers, or spend a fortune on Ubers. I have suggested a compromise and that we should have lunch out for a change but no one is very into that idea because it is too expensive. At the moment we are in a Mexican stand-off and I don’t know how to proceed. At this rate we will all end up at our own respective homes with no one talking to each other until the new year. Why does it have to be so hard? Yours, Frustrated Dear Frustrated, The simple answer is, it doesn’t need to be if you all just sit down and work out a solution. Surely more than any other day, Christmas is a time for compromise and compassion. Yet people tend to get themselves so tied up in knots celebrating a single day that they lose sight of the whole reason why you are meant to be getting together in the first place. And no, One is not talking about honouring the birthday of Jesus, although all power to you if you do. Rather, One is talking about what Christmas has also come to mean in Western society and that is giving selflessly and forgetting about the daily strife of life to be happy in the company of those you love. Surely even Jesus Christ himself would approve. But of course, we all know how quickly the wheels can fall off as everything turns to hell in a handbasket when dealing with family. Your Aunt has been there on many occasions. These days, One avoids One’s siblings like the plague for obvious reasons — One is extremely wealthy yet incredibly mean and the other is utterly charming but would steal the shirt off his own sister’s back if One stood still long enough. And technically One isn’t even sure if he is really a blood relation at all, but that’s a whole other story. So, when One talks about compassion and compromise it is more a case of do as One suggests, not as One does. Usually your Aunt hosts Christmas and invites those who mean the most in One’s life. Which is your Aunt and sometimes old Bert Saunders next door, if we are currently on speaking terms. This year One had considered inviting the postie, who your Aunt has been enjoying a torrid affair with but alas, One knew never to trust a redhead and he has gone to ground. So it looks like it will be a party of two this year. And Bert better bring more than ice cubes or One will be hogging the Mumm and pigs in blankets (if you don’t know what those are, you are missing out!) So, Frustrated, One would suggest getting your siblings in a room, and making a plan. It doesn’t matter how you settle on that plan, it could be through a process of elimination, drawing straws or by fighting it out. But just make a plan, forget the other options and do your best to enjoy the day. Praise be.