Holidays stretched out too long

DEAR MISS MANNERS: This year my adult children are refusing to attend Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners because my dear cousin, who always hosts, doesn’t start cooking until we have arrived.

This means about two or three hours of snacking, drinking cocktails and making conversation before dinner is served. She always provides delicious hors d’oeuvres and wines, but by the time dinner is ready, we are all ready to go home.

My cousin takes great pride in hosting these meals, and after 50 years of eating Thanksgiving turkey together, I really don’t want to hurt her feelings. We could all come up with various excuses not to come … frail elderly mother, new baby, and so forth. Somehow I think we would all be losers by doing this, losing the pleasure of being together with family and hurting my cousin’s feelings.

I hope you can help me find a way to talk to her about the problem, and let her know her approach to hosting is driving us away. It seems like she will get her feelings hurt no matter what I do, but I have to do something, because my daughters and their partners are going to be absent.

GENTLE READER: Instead of using elderly mothers and new babies as excuses not to come, you might use them instead as excuses to help set time limits. Tell your cousin you all love coming to her house for the holidays, but that unfortunately it is too much for someto make it an all-day event. (Maybe the first time after saying so, offer to come early to help with the preparations and invite the others for a little later.)

Miss Manners sympathizes with your plight and commends your patience not only with your time, but also with your digestive system. It is not easy to eat and drink for three hours before finally sitting down to eat and drink.

It may just be that your cousin enjoys the extra time spent with family on these occasions. If you show that you enjoy it too, but also want to be respectful of others’ time, she will likely be much more amenable to your concerns.