The cinnamon-scented candle burning on my mother’s kitchen counter had been there since Thanksgiving, its wax melted into an uneven canyon that would have driven me insane in my own home. But this wasn’t my home, though I’d spent more hours here over the past decade than in any apartment I’d rented. I stood in the doorway with a binder tucked under one arm, a fresh evergreen wreath hooked over my other wrist, and the strange premonition that this might be the year everything finally shifted.
It was a week before Christmas, and the air inside my mother’s house carried that particular seasonal alchemy—pine and cinnamon and something baking that smelled like brown sugar and butter. The scent was supposed to trigger joy, those Pavlovian holiday feelings we’re all conditioned to experience. Lately, though, it just triggered exhaustion, a bone-deep weariness that started sometime around October first and didn’t lift until New Year’s Day had safely passed.
From the living room, I could hear voices. My siblings, gathered for what my mother euphemistically called a “planning session” but what I’d learned to recognize as a delegation meeting where I was simultaneously the primary agenda item and conspicuously absent from the invitation list. They were probably sitting on Mom’s good furniture—the cream-colored sofa we’d been forbidden to touch as children, now somehow acceptable for adults who’d once climbed on it in their muddy sneakers.
My name is Margot. I’m thirty-two years old, and I’m an event planner. I spend eleven months of the year making other people’s gatherings look effortless—coordinating vendors, managing timelines, anticipating disasters before they materialize. I’ve orchestrated fifty-person weddings where the bride and groom’s families hadn’t spoken in fifteen years. I’ve executed corporate galas with seven-course meals and strict kosher requirements. I’ve managed outdoor ceremonies in unpredictable weather with backup plans for the backup plans.
And then, every December, I spend the twelfth month rescuing my own family’s increasingly chaotic attempts at holiday magic.
This year, I’d started early. I’d reserved the butcher’s best heritage ham back in October, securing it on the same day I was there picking up provisions for a client’s farm-to-table rehearsal dinner. I’d designed custom activity books for the kids—my nieces and nephews—with our family traditions sketched in delicate line art. The annual gingerbread house competition. The Christmas Eve scavenger hunt that my grandmother had started forty years ago. The ornament exchange that predated my birth and carried the weight of family mythology.
I’d even created a minute-by-minute timeline, because love, I’d learned, is logistics. Love is remembering that Thomas’s daughter Emma has a tree nut allergy severe enough to require an EpiPen. Love is knowing that Abigail’s son Jackson will only eat carrots if they’re cut into coins—never sticks, never baby carrots, only coins exactly three millimeters thick. Love is understanding that Dad takes his coffee at precisely 6:47 a.m., not a minute sooner or later, and that deviating from this schedule throws off his entire morning routine.
I set my bags down in the hallway, the binder’s weight familiar in my hands. I’d organized it with color-coded dividers—green for food, red for activities, blue for logistics, yellow for emergency contacts. Vendor phone numbers were highlighted in pink. Backup options for every possible failure point were noted in the margins. The document was a masterpiece of contingency planning, the kind of organizational feat that would have impressed my most demanding clients.
Through the archway, I could see the edge of the cream sofa, occupied now by my sister Abigail’s perfectly pressed slacks. She always dressed like she was about to walk into a boardroom, even on weekends. Especially on weekends, actually, as if relaxing might somehow compromise her corporate attorney credibility.
That’s when I heard my name cut through the ambient conversation like a knife through fondant.
“So we’re agreed,” Abigail said, using that particular voice she’d perfected over years of litigation—the one that made declarations sound like collaborative decisions even though the verdict had been determined long before anyone entered the room. “Margot watches all five kids during the adult dinner.”
I froze, one hand still resting on the wreath, my breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat. The hallway suddenly felt smaller, the air thicker.
“All five” meant Jackson and James—Abigail’s seven-year-old twins who possessed the supernatural ability to find exactly which family heirloom was most fragile and break it within thirty seconds of entering any room. And it meant Sophie, Emma, and Lucas—Thomas’s children, ages nine, six, and four, each one precious and delightful and utterly exhausting. Five children under the age of ten, which anyone who’d spent meaningful time with that demographic would recognize as approximately four children too many for a single adult to supervise while simultaneously preparing food, managing inevitable meltdowns, preventing injuries, and maintaining the illusion of having everything under control.
My mother made that humming sound she did when someone articulated exactly what she’d been thinking but hadn’t wanted to say out loud. “She’s wonderful with them. And she’s already planned activities. It makes perfect sense.”
The words hit me like a physical thing. Yes, I’d planned activities. An entire craft station organized by age and developmental stage, with biodegradable glitter because Abigail had gone eco-conscious last year after watching a documentary about ocean plastics and wouldn’t stop talking about microparticles in the food chain. I’d ordered handprint ornament kits for the youngest ones, friendship bracelet supplies for the older kids, and a felt Christmas tree with velcro decorations that could be rearranged infinitely for the middle children who got bored easily and needed constant stimulation.
But those activities were designed for after dinner. After we’d all eaten together—grandparents and parents and children and me—around the extended dining table that required three different tablecloths sewn together. After the dishes had been cleared and the leftover turkey wrapped and the wine glasses rinsed. After adults had pushed back from the table with that satisfied exhaustion that comes from good food and better company, and we’d all migrate to the living room floor—three generations helping with glitter glue and praising wonky ornaments while coffee steeped and Christmas music played softly and the evening settled into that perfect golden hour of family connection that made all the preparation worthwhile.
The activities were not designed as child-containment duty while everyone else enjoyed a wine-paired meal in peace.
“She can eat early with the kids,” Thomas added, his voice carrying that casual certainty of someone who’d never spent a family dinner exiled to the children’s room. “Maybe at five? Then handle the cleanup while we eat. Last year was chaotic—I barely tasted anything Margot cooked because the kids kept interrupting.”
Last year’s menu had taken me three days to execute. A standing rib roast that I’d monitored like a ICU patient, checking the temperature every fifteen minutes, basting it with herb butter every twenty. Roasted root vegetables—parsnips, carrots, fingerling potatoes—tossed with fresh thyme from my winter garden. Potato gratin that required slicing everything uniformly thin on a mandoline, layering with precision, the kind of dish that looks effortlessly elegant but requires the timing of a Swiss watchmaker. Apple tart with homemade crust because store-bought pastry doesn’t brown properly and tastes vaguely of chemicals.
I’d barely tasted it either, but that was because I’d been awake since five a.m. making sure everyone else could enjoy themselves.
They laughed—softly, fondly, the way people laugh when they’re absolutely certain the person they’re assigning work to will say yes because she always has before. The sound wrapped around me like a familiar coat that had stopped fitting years ago but I kept wearing out of habit, out of the fear that being cold might somehow be worse than being uncomfortable.
Someone mentioned “Santa duties,” which translated to me staying awake until at least midnight arranging presents under the tree with precisely calibrated fairness. Last year, Jacob had received one more package than Emma, and the resulting meltdown had required twenty minutes of negotiation and the sacrifice of one of my own presents to restore peace. This year, I’d already counted, recounted, and documented the distribution to ensure mathematical equity.
Someone else brought up “snowman pancakes” for Christmas morning breakfast, which would require me waking up at dawn to make shaped pancakes for seven adults and five children using my mother’s ancient cast-iron griddle that heated unevenly and required constant vigilance to prevent burning. I’d need to make at least forty pancakes, each one carefully shaped, each one requiring different cooking times depending on thickness and position on the griddle.
No one asked if I had plans. No one wondered whether I might have other obligations. No one remembered that I’d mentioned—twice now, once in October at my nephew’s birthday party and once at Thanksgiving while washing dishes—that I was bringing Jason. Jason, who I’d been dating for eight months. Jason, who’d met my family exactly once at a Labor Day barbecue where everyone had been so focused on the rented bounce house that they’d barely exchanged three sentences with him. Jason, who’d asked me last week with genuine confusion in his voice, “Do they even know I exist?” and I’d laughed it off because the alternative was admitting that no, probably they didn’t, not really, not in any way that mattered.
No one remembered because my presence had become infrastructure. I was the electrical wiring, the plumbing, the foundation—invisible, essential, and completely taken for granted until something stopped working.
I backed away from the doorway before the century-old floorboards could betray me with their telltale creaks. I collected my binder, my wreath, and whatever dignity I could still scrape together from the corners of my increasingly fragile composure. Found my car keys with hands that trembled just slightly. Drove home on muscle memory, the route so familiar I barely registered the turns, my body executing the familiar choreography while my mind spun in tight, furious circles.
In my dining room—where wrapping paper was lined up like a Pantone strip, gifts organized by recipient and priority level, my system so refined I could wrap presents in my sleep—I finally let myself feel what I’d been pushing down for years. Maybe decades.
First came the anger, hot and sharp and clarifying. How dare they. How dare they assume my time, my considerable skills, my entire Christmas was theirs to allocate like I was a shared resource instead of a person with my own desires and limitations. How dare they reduce me to childcare and cleanup crew, as if the woman who orchestrated six-figure weddings with multiple dietary restrictions and complex family dynamics was best utilized making chicken nuggets and wiping up juice spills.
Then came the sadness beneath the anger, softer and deeper and somehow more painful. The grief of recognition: somewhere along the way, I’d become the person they called when they needed something fixed, not the person they called to see how I was doing. I’d become the solution to their problems, the fix-it woman, the one who made everything work so smoothly they’d forgotten it required actual work. I’d made magic look easy, and the price of that illusion was that no one believed it cost me anything.
And finally, behind both the anger and the sadness, came clarity as sharp and clean as breaking glass.
My time had become communal property. A resource they felt entitled to schedule, allocate, and deplete without consultation or compensation. And I had trained them to treat me this way by saying yes every single time, by making miracles look effortless, by absorbing their chaos and transforming it into magic while smiling the entire time, while pretending it didn’t hurt, while acting like I didn’t have my own dreams of what Christmas could be.
I looked at my dining room table, at the archaeological evidence of my preparation. At the meal plans typed in 11-point Calibri. At the activity schedules laminated for durability. At the backup batteries I’d already purchased and tested. At the version of Christmas I’d been building for people who’d somehow forgotten to invite me to my own holiday.
I am a professional at Plan B.
And sometimes Plan B means choosing yourself when no one else will.
By noon the next day, I’d booked an oceanfront suite. Five nights, starting Christmas Eve, at a resort three hours north that I’d worked with for a client’s anniversary celebration last year. The place clung to a cliff overlooking the Atlantic, all floor-to-ceiling windows and gas fireplaces and a restaurant that had received a James Beard nomination. It cost more than I’d normally spend on a vacation—significantly more, the kind of number that made my savings-oriented brain flinch—but the kitchen renovation I’d been planning could wait another few months. My self-respect, apparently, could not.
I called Jason first. “Remember when you said you wished we could have Christmas to ourselves?”
His pause was brief, thoughtful. “Did something happen?”
“Everything happened. Nothing happened. Does it matter?” I took a breath that felt like the first real oxygen I’d had in days. “There’s an oceanfront suite with our names on it. Five nights. We can sleep until noon if we want. We can eat what we want when we want. We can ignore obligations and traditions and just… be. Will you come with me?”
His yes was immediate and warm and exactly what I needed to hear. “I’ll pack tonight. Should I bring anything specific?”
“Just yourself. And maybe that bottle of wine you’ve been saving for a special occasion.”
“This definitely qualifies.”
Next, I called Anthony Ducas, the caterer who’d worked with me on at least a dozen events over the past three years. The man who’d once pulled off a seven-course tasting menu when a client changed the entire concept forty-eight hours before service. Who’d taught me that the difference between good events and great ones often came down to working with people who understood that “impossible” just meant “expensive.”
“Anthony,” I said when he answered, “I need a miracle.”
He laughed, the sound familiar and comforting. “Of course you do, Margot. It’s mid-December. What’s the event?”
“Christmas dinner for my family. I need two menus. Beef Wellington with all the traditional sides—roasted Brussels sprouts, scalloped potatoes, the works—plus wine pairings. Make it impressive but achievable for someone with moderate cooking skills. Include full instructions, idiot-proof reheating directions, the whole production. And a kids’ menu: chicken tenders, mac and cheese, roasted broccoli with cheese sauce, and sugar cookies shaped like snowmen. Everything labeled. Everything foolproof. Can you deliver at four p.m. on Christmas Day?”
“To your mom’s address?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be there to receive delivery?”
“No.”
The silence stretched for exactly three seconds. Then: “Margot. Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”
“I’m taking Christmas off.”
“Jesus Christ. Okay. Yes. Absolutely yes. Consider it done.” He paused, and I could hear him smiling through the phone. “And Margot? Good for you. It’s about damn time.”
The next three days became a quiet insurgency, a carefully planned extraction from my own family traditions.
I retrieved my grandmother’s hand-painted ornaments from my mother’s house under the pretense of “finalizing the menu details.” They’d hung on my grandmother’s tree for sixty years before she’d passed them to me with strict instructions that they were mine—not the family’s, mine specifically—to keep and eventually pass to my own children. Somehow they’d migrated to Mom’s house three Christmases ago during what she’d called a “reorganization,” and had never found their way back to my apartment. Now they would spend the holiday on my tree, in my space, honored the way my grandmother had intended.
I collected the stockings I’d embroidered over the course of five years—one for each family member, hundreds of hours of work, each one customized with names and tiny symbols representing their interests. Thomas’s had a baseball. Abigail’s had a gavel. Mom’s had a garden trowel. They’d been hanging on Mom’s mantle every Christmas, credited to “the family” in that vague way that erased individual labor. I left the hooks empty. They could hang dish towels if they wanted something festive.
I wrapped gifts for the kids because whatever else was happening, I loved those children fiercely and they didn’t deserve to be caught in the middle of adult dysfunction. Five presents, carefully chosen and age-appropriate, arranged for courier delivery on Christmas morning. I included cards that said simply, “Merry Christmas! Love, Aunt Margot” and nothing else, because explaining wasn’t their burden to carry.
Every request that pinged my phone over the next seventy-two hours received the same carefully constructed response: “My schedule’s tight this year. I’ll see what I can do.”
Can you pick up batteries for all the toys? My schedule’s tight this year. I’ll see what I can do.
Can you draft the scavenger hunt clues like you did three years ago? My schedule’s tight this year. I’ll see what I can do.
Can you come over early on Christmas Eve to help rearrange furniture so there’s room for the kids’ table? My schedule’s tight this year. I’ll see what I can do.
The beauty of this response was its plausible deniability. I wasn’t saying no. I was just… not saying yes. And the thing about boundaries is they don’t require justification. They don’t need elaborate defense or lengthy explanation. They just need consistent maintenance.
Two days before Christmas, my mother called. “Margot, honey, I haven’t seen you all week. Is everything okay with you?”
“Everything’s fine, Mom. Just busy with year-end client events.” This was technically true. I’d had two events in the past week, though nothing that would have prevented me from my usual Christmas preparation routine.
“Well, you’re still coming Christmas Eve, right? We have so much to set up, and you’re so much better at organizing everything than the rest of us.”
I looked at my suitcase, already half-packed on my bedroom floor. At Jason’s toothbrush next to mine in the bathroom. At the future I was choosing over the past I’d been handed.
“I’ll be there in spirit,” I said, keeping my voice light.
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means I love you and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, Mom.”
“Margot Ann—”
“I have another call coming in. Talk soon.”
I hung up before she could finish whatever guilt-laden statement she’d been constructing. Turned off the ringer. Poured myself a glass of wine and felt something in my chest finally start to unknot.
On December 24th, at 4:47 in the morning, I loaded my car in the dark while my neighborhood slept. My suitcase. Jason’s duffel bag. The box of grandmother’s ornaments, carefully cushioned with bubble wrap. A cooler with breakfast pastries from my favorite bakery and a thermos of good coffee. The electric kettle I’d bought specifically for this trip. Two books I’d been meaning to read for six months. The feeling that I was either making the best decision of my life or the worst one, and that either way, I needed to know which it was.
Jason climbed into the passenger seat with two travel mugs and a smile that looked like permission. “Ready?”
“Ask me in five hours.”
We drove north as the sun came up, painting the sky in gradients of pink and gold and orange that felt like validation. Like the universe itself was approving of this choice. I powered off my phone somewhere around exit 47, the weight of constant connectivity lifting like morning fog.
The resort appeared exactly when the GPS said it would, perched on its cliff like something from a magazine spread. We checked in at the front desk—dark wood, subtle lighting, a woman with an efficient smile who handed us key cards and wished us a peaceful stay. Our suite was on the third floor, and when I opened the door, I actually gasped.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the Atlantic, waves crashing against rocks fifty feet below in rhythmic percussion. A gas fireplace sat ready with a basket of logs artfully arranged nearby. The kitchen was stocked with local wine, artisanal cheese, olives, crackers—like someone had predicted exactly what we’d need. Two plush robes hung in the closet, softer than anything I owned. And everywhere, silence. The kind of deep, luxurious quiet that felt like a physical presence.
“Jesus,” Jason breathed. “Margot, this is incredible.”
“Worth it?” I asked.
“Worth everything.”
We spent Christmas Eve drinking wine by the fire, cooking pasta in our pajamas at nine p.m. because we could, because no one’s schedule dictated ours, because the only people we needed to please were ourselves. We watched old movies we’d both seen a hundred times, quoting favorite lines, pausing whenever we wanted to kiss or talk or refill our glasses. No schedule. No obligations. No one needed me to be anything other than exactly who I was in this moment.
It felt like being reborn.
Christmas morning, we slept until nine. Made coffee slowly, deliberately, treating the ritual like meditation. Opened gifts to each other—small things, thoughtful things, chosen because we’d been paying attention. Jason had somehow tracked down a first edition of my favorite novel through rare book dealers, had spent weeks finding it, and the dedication inside made my eyes blur with tears. I’d gotten him the Japanese chef’s knife he’d been eyeing for months, the one he’d never buy himself because it seemed too extravagant, and when he held it, testing the balance, his face transformed with joy.
We walked on the beach bundled in coats and scarves, the winter wind sharp and clean, burning our cheeks pink. Had lunch at the resort restaurant—lobster bisque and fresh bread and a chocolate torte we split because we both wanted it and there was no one to judge our indulgence. Napped in the afternoon because no one required us awake.
I turned my phone on once, briefly, just to confirm no one had died.
Sixty-three messages. Forty-seven from the family group chat. Sixteen individual texts. Four voicemails.
I read none of them. Just confirmed that all the messages began with words, not “call immediately” or “emergency,” which meant everyone was alive and functional and that was enough. That was all I needed to know.
I turned the phone off again and didn’t feel even a whisper of guilt about it.
But I couldn’t avoid them forever. On the morning of December 26th, still ensconced in our suite, I powered the phone on fully and composed the message I’d been mentally drafting since we arrived:
“Won’t be available for childcare during dinner. Enjoy your adult meal. Food will be delivered at 4 p.m. today—reheating instructions included. Gifts for the kids arriving Christmas morning. I’ll see you all when I get back. Love, M.”
I hit send on the family group chat and watched the screen light up almost immediately with incoming calls.
I let them all go to voicemail. Listened to none of them. Instead, Jason and I went for another beach walk, collected sea glass, and had dinner at a small restaurant in the nearby town where no one knew my name or expected anything from me.
That evening, though, I couldn’t ignore it any longer. My mother had called fourteen times. I answered on the fifteenth.
“Where are you?” The words came out sharp with panic, the particular edge that appears when a plan falls apart and there’s no backup. “We’ve been trying to reach you all day.”
I watched Jason reading by the fireplace, his shoulders relaxed in a way I rarely saw them around my family. “Mom,” I said, keeping my voice steady, “don’t wait for me.”
Her silence was the longest sound I’d ever heard.
“What do you mean don’t wait for you? You’re supposed to be here. You’re handling the children. You’re managing Christmas dinner. You’re—”
“I’m not available this year.”
“Not available? Margot, this is Christmas. Family comes first. You can’t just abandon your responsibilities because you’re having some kind of… moment.”
The words stuck in my throat for several seconds—all the responses I could give, all the ways I could explain that I’d been putting family first for so long that I’d forgotten what my own face looked like in the mirror, what my own desires felt like untethered from everyone else’s needs. But explanations weren’t boundaries. Explanations were negotiations, and I wasn’t negotiating anymore.
“The food will arrive at four. Everything’s labeled with reheating instructions. You’ll be fine.”
“Fine? How are we supposed to manage five children while we’re trying to eat dinner? Margot, you can’t possibly expect—”
“However you want, Mom. You’re all capable adults. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” I took a breath. “You’ve been figuring things out your whole lives. You don’t actually need me. You’ve just gotten used to having me.”
“Your father is going to be so disappointed in you.”
The words were designed to wound, and they did, but not in the way she intended. “Then he can call me himself and tell me so. But I suspect he won’t, because Dad’s disappointed when his coffee is late, not when I’m absent.”
I hung up before she could respond. Turned off the phone completely. Watched Jason set down his book and open his arms, and I walked into them and cried for twenty minutes straight—partly from guilt, partly from relief, mostly from the sheer overwhelming sensation of choosing myself for the first time in recent memory.
“You did the right thing,” he murmured into my hair.
“Then why does it feel so terrible?”
“Because you’re kind. Because you love them. And because they’re going to make you feel terrible for having boundaries until they realize you’re serious.”
We spent the rest of Christmas in our bubble. Swimming in the resort pool. Reading by the fire. Making love without worrying about who might hear through thin walls. Eating when we were hungry, sleeping when we were tired, existing on our own time in our own space. Jason taught me a card game his grandfather had taught him. I taught him the proper way to fold fitted sheets, which made him laugh so hard he cried.
On the evening of December 28th, as we packed to leave the next morning, I finally read the messages.
They’d evolved through predictable stages. Confusion on Christmas Day: “Where are you? We need you here.” Anger by Christmas evening: “This is unbelievable. You’ve ruined everything.” Hurt by the 26th: “The kids kept asking for you. How could you do this?” And finally, by the 27th, something that looked almost like reflection, from Abigail: “The food you sent was incredible. Instructions were perfect. Everything worked exactly like you said it would. But it wasn’t the same without you.”
I stared at that last message for a long time.
It wasn’t the same without you.
Translation: We missed having someone to manage everything. We missed having someone to blame when things went wrong. We missed having you absorb our chaos so we could enjoy ourselves.
Or maybe—and this was the thought that made my chest ache—maybe they actually did miss me. Maybe underneath the entitlement and the thoughtless assumptions, there was genuine love that had gotten buried under years of taking me for granted. Maybe both things could be true simultaneously. People were complicated that way.
Jason appeared behind me, resting his chin on my shoulder. “What are you going to say?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You don’t have to respond tonight. Or tomorrow. You can take your time.”
“They’ll think I’m punishing them.”
“Maybe you are, a little bit. Would that be so wrong?”
I considered this. “No,” I said finally. “I don’t think it would.”
We drove home on December 29th, tanned from beach walks despite the winter season, rested in a way I didn’t remember being rested before. The drive back was quiet, contemplative, both of us knowing we were returning to consequences but not quite ready to articulate what they might be.
My phone stayed off until we reached my apartment driveway. Jason kissed me before heading to his own place. “Whatever happens,” he said, “you were right to go. Don’t let them make you doubt that. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
I powered on my phone and watched the messages multiply like bacteria in a petri dish. The tone had continued evolving. Some anger remained, particularly from my mother. But there were also notes of confusion, of hurt that seemed almost genuine, of people beginning to realize that perhaps they’d been taking something for granted that they shouldn’t have.
I spent New Year’s Eve alone, deliberately, taking stock of my life and my choices. On New Year’s Day, I finally composed my responses. Not to the group chat—mass communications let people hide in consensus, diffuse responsibility across the collective. Individual messages to each person, because this needed to be personal.
To Mom: “I love you. I love our family. But I can’t be the person who makes Christmas work for everyone else while I watch from the sidelines. If you want me there next year, we need to have a real conversation about what that looks like. Not just a list of tasks you need done.”
To Dad: “I’m sorry I disappointed you. But I need you to understand that my time and skills aren’t communal property. I’m happy to contribute to family events as a participant, but I’m not willing to be the only person contributing while everyone else just shows up.”
To Thomas: “I adore your kids more than I can say. But being good with children doesn’t mean I’m the default babysitter. Next year, if you want adult time at dinner, we can all take turns with the kids. Or you can hire a babysitter. But I’m not spending another holiday in a separate room from my own family.”
To Abigail: “I’m glad the food worked out. I’m glad you were able to enjoy your meal. That’s genuinely what I wanted—for everyone to have a good Christmas. I just needed to have one too, which I couldn’t do while being responsible for every detail of yours.”
And finally, to the family group chat: “I love you all. See you for New Year’s brunch? My treat.”
The responses came slowly, unevenly, each person processing in their own way and on their own timeline.
Mom called instead of texting, which I’d expected. We talked for an hour and seventeen minutes. She cried. I cried. She said she hadn’t realized how much she’d been asking, that she’d just gotten comfortable with me handling things, that she was sorry. I believed about seventy percent of it, which was honestly better than I’d expected.
Dad sent a two-line text: “You’re right. We took advantage. I’m sorry.” From Dad, a man who’d never apologized for anything in my childhood, that was practically a doctoral dissertation.
Thomas called on New Year’s Eve, slightly drunk, suddenly emotional in the way men get when alcohol loosens their carefully maintained composure. “I didn’t know,” he said, his words slightly slurred. “I swear to God, Margot, I didn’t know we’d been doing that to you. Sarah—my wife—she pointed it out. Asked me what I’d contributed to Christmas planning, and I couldn’t name one fucking thing. That’s really messed up. I’m so sorry.”
Abigail showed up at my apartment on New Year’s Day morning with coffee from the good place and bagels from the bakery I loved, her eyes red from what looked like a night of poor sleep. “I’ve been the person at work who gets all the administrative tasks because I’m competent and efficient,” she said without preamble. “I should have recognized I was doing the same thing to you. I’m sorry. Truly, deeply sorry.”
We sat at my kitchen table eating bagels and didn’t try to fix everything in one conversation because some things take time to rebuild, and rushing the process would only make it more fragile.
New Year’s brunch was different from any family gathering I could remember.
I brought Jason and actually introduced him properly, watched my family ask him questions about his work, his interests, his life, instead of just his relationship utility to me. Thomas brought mimosa ingredients and made drinks for everyone, actually manning the beverage station himself. Abigail had ordered pastries from the expensive bakery and remembered to get the almond croissants I particularly liked. Mom set the table herself, didn’t ask me to check if she’d done it right. Dad asked me about my vacation, actually listened to my answers, asked follow-up questions that suggested he was genuinely curious about my experience.
The kids tackled me when I arrived, and I played with them for twenty minutes—really played, got down on the floor and built block towers and read stories. Then Sophie asked, “Can we do crafts now?”
“Maybe later,” I said. “Right now I want to eat brunch with the grown-ups.”
“Okay!” She ran off without protest, and I realized something I’d always suspected: children are remarkably adaptable when adults set clear expectations and maintain them consistently.
It wasn’t perfect. Years of patterns don’t dissolve in a week. At one point Mom started to ask if I could “maybe coordinate” Easter planning, caught herself mid-sentence, and rephrased: “Would you be willing to help plan Easter if we all contribute ideas and work?”
Small shift. Significant difference.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like that.”
As we cleaned up—everyone actually cleaning, not just me while others socialized—Abigail pulled me aside into Mom’s hallway.
“I’ve been thinking about what you did,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Taking Christmas for yourself. I thought it was selfish at first. I was angry. But the more I’ve thought about it over the past week…” She paused, her lawyer’s precision evident in how she constructed her thoughts. “It was the first time I’ve ever seen you choose yourself. And it made me realize you shouldn’t have to run away to do that. We should have been making space for you all along.”
I hugged her, surprising both of us with the sudden intensity of it.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “For getting it. For understanding.”
“I’m sorry it took you leaving for us to see you,” she said.
This Christmas—a full year later—we’re doing things differently.
Mom’s still hosting, but we’ve restructured everything. Thomas is handling the bar and wine selection, actually researching pairings and creating a menu. Abigail’s managing the kids’ activities with input from me but executing them herself. Dad’s in charge of music and ambiance, has created a playlist and arranged the lighting. I’m doing the main course because I genuinely love cooking when it’s my choice rather than my obligation, when it’s a gift I’m giving rather than a debt I’m paying.
We hired a babysitter for the adult dinner portion. Her name is Carolina, she’s an early childhood education major, and we’re paying her extremely well to keep five children entertained for three hours on Christmas Day. We’ll all eat together first—adults and kids, one big table—and then Carolina takes over while we clean up and transition to the craft activities together afterward.
Jason’s coming, obviously. He’s been to enough family gatherings over the past year that he’s stopped asking if he should bring anything and just shows up with wine and his dry sense of humor that my dad has, surprisingly, grown to appreciate.
And on Christmas Eve, before the family chaos begins, Jason and I are spending the night at that same oceanfront resort. Just one night this year, but it’s become our tradition. Our Christmas, before the family Christmas.
Because I learned something last year that I should have learned decades ago: you can love your family deeply and still need boundaries. You can be generous without being depleted. You can contribute without being consumed. You can be exceptionally skilled at making magic and still deserve to experience some yourself.
Last week, Mom called to “finalize the schedule”—language that’s evolved from “tell you what you’re doing” to actually discussing mutual plans. We talked for forty minutes, went through logistics, confirmed timing. Before we hung up, she said something that made my throat tight with unexpected emotion:
“Thank you for last year, Margot. For showing us what we’d been doing. We’re better because you were brave enough to choose yourself.”
“We’re better because you were willing to change,” I told her, and meant it.
Both things were true. Both things could exist simultaneously.
Tonight, I’m wrapping the last few gifts in my dining room—paper still organized by color, system still refined, but the joy returned to the process. The logistics are a choice now, not a burden. Jason’s in the kitchen making dinner, and I can hear him humming off-key to the radio, and the sound makes me smile in a way that feels uncomplicated.
My suitcase for tomorrow night’s getaway is already packed, waiting by the door like a promise.
My phone rings. It’s Abigail.
“Quick question,” she says. “I’m setting up the craft station and I can’t remember—do the sequins go out for all ages or just eight and up?”
“Eight and up,” I say automatically. “Choking hazard for Lucas.”
“Right. Okay. Got it. Thank you.” She pauses. “And Margot? I’m actually doing this. The whole craft station. You’re not responsible for it.”
“I know.”
“I just wanted to make sure you knew. That you understood you could actually rest tomorrow. That you’re not on backup duty. I’ve got this.”
“I know,” I say again, and this time I actually believe it. Feel it settle into my bones as truth rather than hope.
“Okay. Good. Love you. See you tomorrow.”
“Love you too, Abby.”
I hang up and look around my apartment. At the life I’ve built. At the boundaries I’ve maintained with consistent care. At the family I’ve trained—gently but firmly—to see me as a person with my own needs, not just a resource to be allocated.
It took running away to make them understand I was serious.
But it was worth every uncomfortable moment, every difficult conversation, every instance of holding firm when saying yes would have been easier.
Jason appears in the doorway, spatula in hand. “Dinner’s ready. And I have a proposal for you.”
“Another proposal?” I tease. He’d proposed in October, on a sunset beach walk at that same resort, with a ring he’d designed himself. The wedding is planned for next fall, and I’ve already hired a planner—refused to plan my own wedding, set that boundary before anyone could suggest otherwise.
“More of a tradition proposal,” he says, grinning. “What if every year, no matter what else happens, we keep Christmas Eve sacred? Just for us. Start every holiday season by choosing each other first.”
I think about the woman I was a year ago. About the binder and the wreath and the naive hope that maybe this would be the year I finally got to enjoy the holiday I always engineered. I’d been wrong about that. That year wasn’t when I got to enjoy it.
That year was when I learned how to ensure I always would.
“Yes,” I tell Jason, crossing the room to kiss him. “Absolutely yes. Every year. Our Christmas first.”
We eat dinner slowly, no schedule rushing us forward, no obligations fragmenting our attention. Later, we’ll watch a movie. Later still, we’ll finish packing for tomorrow. But right now, in this moment, we’re just here. Just us. Just this.
Choosing ourselves first so we have something whole to share with others.
That’s the gift I gave myself last Christmas. That’s the gift I’m giving myself this year, and next year, and every year after that.
The gift of knowing that love doesn’t require self-erasure. That family doesn’t mean martyrdom. That being needed and being valued are two entirely different things.
And that sometimes, the most generous thing you can do for the people you love is to teach them that you’re not infinitely available—because only then can they learn to value the time you do choose to give.
I wrap the last present, tie the bow, and set it with the others.
Tomorrow, we’ll celebrate Christmas. We’ll eat and laugh and make memories.
But tonight, I celebrate myself.
And that, I’ve learned, makes all the difference.
Lila Hart is a dedicated Digital Archivist and Research Specialist with a keen eye for preserving and curating meaningful content. At TheArchivists, she specializes in organizing and managing digital archives, ensuring that valuable stories and historical moments are accessible for generations to come.
Lila earned her degree in History and Archival Studies from the University of Edinburgh, where she cultivated her passion for documenting the past and preserving cultural heritage. Her expertise lies in combining traditional archival techniques with modern digital tools, allowing her to create comprehensive and engaging collections that resonate with audiences worldwide.
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