Navigating the Holidays With Screwed Up People

by | Nov 28, 2025 | Opinions & Commentary

Navigating the Holidays With Screwed Up People

by | Nov 28, 2025 | Opinions & Commentary

We usually try to survive relational challenges and family gatherings during the holidays by picking one of three less-than-ideal options.

Republished with permission from John Pavlovitz

‘Tis the season to be struggling…

For many of us, this season feels more like a wound than a gift, pressing on grief we’ve tried to bury, reminding us of people who are missing, exposing fractures in our families, our faith, and our sense of safety in the world.

The holidays have a way of shining a big, bright spotlight on all the things that aren’t okay:

  • The distance in our families.
  • The tension at our tables.
  • The divisions in our nation.
  • The people who are missing from the photos this year.
  • The faith we used to hold easily, that now feels slippery or gone.
  • The sense that the world is burning and we’re expected to roast chestnuts on the flames.

And the really uncomfortable truth is that our problem is people: either their absence or their presence. This is why we’re dealing with this profound seasonal struggle. We are flawed and failing human beings trying to live alongside billions of other flawed and failing human beings.

To one degree or another, I imagine we’re all asking the same question right now of our families, and of our friendships, neighbors, churches, schoolmates, and co-workers: How the heck do we deal with the stuff we’ve seen and the things we know and the pain we’ve incurred this year?

We usually try to survive relational challenges and family gatherings during the holidays by picking one of three less-than-ideal options. I call them:

The Ceasefire is when we decide to stay in the shallows for the sake of avoiding a firestorm. We vow a temporary truce. No politics. No faith talk. No honesty. We plaster on the smiles, make small talk about football and the weather, and hope no one drops the words immigrant, or abortion, or “healthcare into the conversation. It’s a peace brokered through pretending.

Scorched Earth is the other extreme: you go in guns blazing, you move unapologetically, unfiltered, and fully out of f*cks. Every unspoken grievance gets airtime. Every hurt gets replayed. You come armed with talking points and receipts, fully prepared to let everyone know exactly what you think about their social media posts. This no-hold-barred clearing of the air might feel cathartic in the moment, but it might create relational wreckage too great to survive.

The Ghosting option is when we just… don’t go. We withdraw. We go silent. We skip the gatherings in the name of sanity and self-preservation. Opting out altogether may likely buy us some necessary time to heal and rest and see clearly, though that too might rob us of the last holiday for this version of our family, as death doesn’t wait for us to get our messes together.

And the truth is, none of these options is perfect. They all cost something, whether authenticity, connection, or safety, and that in itself exacerbates the pain this spot in the calendar brings.

Instead of looking for the perfect approach this season, try asking the question: “Who most needs love and rest and mercy right now, and how can I offer that?”

Maybe it’s your child or grandchild who just needs holiday normalcy for a few days, and so on their behalf, you’re going to make a sacrifice and center them and show up as best you can.

Maybe it’s your estranged parent or sibling who you’re trying like hell to see the best in, and in an effort to acknowledge their humanity, you’re going to lean into that relationship for a few hours.

Maybe it’s the marginalized and forgotten and the vulnerable; the people on the edges in your community, and this season might be about activism or caregiving or charity, about spending more time with those people and less with the people you used to share the holidays with.

Or maybe it’s you. Maybe you’re the one most in need of gentleness, and the most radical thing you could do this season is to give that to yourself.

Here’s the deal: you don’t have to love everyone equally well at the same time. You get to triage. You get to decide where your energy goes and how your empathy gets expressed. That’s not selfishness, that’s stewardship.

This would be where I’d really love to tie everything up neatly with some priceless nuggets of truth, so that we could all get on with our holidays and celebrations and reunions, but that’s not happening.

All I can do is acknowledge that we’re all in this uncertain ugliness together, and that we all will be sitting in the paradoxical tension of giving thanks while in some ways lamenting what we no longer have, of celebrating life while grieving what is dead or gone.

Friend, however you choose to navigate these holidays, know that it’s the right way. Give yourself permission to pretend or confront or abstain as you need to, and forgive yourself later if you decide you chose poorly. You’re doing the best you can.

Happy (As Possible) Holidays…

John Pavlovitz

John Pavlovitz

John Pavlovitz is a writer, pastor, and activist from Wake Forest, North Carolina. A 25-year veteran in the trenches of local church ministry, John is committed to equality, diversity, and justice—both inside and outside faith communities. When not actively working for a more compassionate planet, John enjoys spending time with his family, exercising, cooking, and having time in nature. He is the author of A Bigger Table, Hope and Other Superpowers, Low, and Stuff That Needs to Be Said.

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