Two weddings and a Christmas: survival tips

In mid-December, while I was at the height of an anticipatory, festive glittery whirlwind, a friend of mind decided to dampen my enthusiasm by telling me that Christmas was the time of the year when most couples broke up. Talk about grinchy.

Oh yes, the petri dish of pessimism continued, he had this straight from the horse’s mouth of a long-established relationship counsellor who said couples split because they did too many things together over Christmas.

Obviously, spending too much time together may have the effect of realising that your only shared interests are whether the milk in the fridge is off. But the real killer is that doing too much stuff together causes an enormous pressure for collective organising. This often results in couples cracking and throwing in the his and hers towels.

The same logic extends to families, where relationships are so strained by the pressure of group organisation that families refuse to talk at all for months afterwards – likely until next December when it’s time to do it all again . . .

Before this December, I was a little sceptical over how accurate this was. I’d never really been around for partner/family Christmases, having always being either overseas or too young to contribute anything other than the occasional burp in serious moments.

I made up for this lack of knowledge this year by snorting a speedball of relationship/family decision-making over Christmas. My brother decided to get married twice in the fortnight leading up to Christmas – same chick, just once in India and once in NZ. So we flew to India, flew home, hosted the wedding at our house the day before Christmas, threw a wedding guest Christmas party, then our Christmas party, then a partners’ new year and then finally our family’s new year. It was like a month-long military operation – if the military employed only six, severely jet-lagged people who all had equally passionate opinions on napkin arrangements.

And while I’m relieved to say that all romantic and familial relationships in my family are still intact, we all got to the stage on New Year’s Day where if anyone spoke to anyone else they were going to be poked in the eye with a cheerio.

So I hate to say it, but I see where the relationship counsellor was coming from. By virtue of it being basically a string of continual group decisions, Christmas is the time in the year when you are forced to realise repeatedly that your loved one might have the organisational ability of a toddler after two double espressos. (Guilty.)

And my careful four-week study has revealed that there are three factors that determine whether you and another person are going to run into organisational bickering.

The most common arguments are caused by time, and specifically whether the person you’re going places with has any concept of it. We all know there are two types of people: those who know how long half an hour is and those who think it’s enough time to make breakfast, pack a bag and do a home bikini wax. (Very guilty.)

And the majority of fights seem to spring from situations when one person is sitting in the car ready to go and the other has decided it’s time to look for that ceramic cactus travel mug they were given four years ago.

The second thing that’s likely to cause a fight is if the person you’re talking to is good with detail. And by that, do they remember to book shuttles/ carry their EpiPen/defrost the turkey/know what their brother’s new girlfriend’s name is . . . Because it doesn’t matter if you’re 30 minutes early to the airport if you haven’t got a visa to travel with. (Definitely guilty.)

And we all know that forgetting small but important details means another year of conversations that start with, ‘‘Well, you ruined last Christmas because you forgot . . .’’

Then finally, and this is the killer, does the person you’re talking to need to be in control of making decisions? Even if you’re someone who struggles to decide whether you want a nap or a juice box, you can avoid a lot of arguments by just agreeing to do whatever the chief organising person wants. The problems really start when you have two people who both want to call logistical shots. Especially if one of them has no concept of time and the other none of detail.

Ideally, what you need for relationship bliss is for everyone to understand their own capabilities and not try to organise the things they suck at. But people are about as willing to own up to being badly organised as they are to being a bad cook.

So what happens is everyone tries to do everything, we all miss the plane and we still can’t find the ceramic cactus mug. But at least we’ve all got all year to look for it before next time.

It was like a monthlong military operation – if the military employed only six, severely jet-lagged people who all had opinions on napkin arrangements.