Is Skipping My Parents’ Christmas This Year the Right Call for My Child?
My mother called on Sunday evening to confirm our plans for Christmas. I said, “We’re not sure yet,” which is not a phrase she likes. From the dining table, Leo looked up from his spelling worksheet. He didn’t say anything. He just watched me, waiting to see if I would be able to say no. When I hung up, he asked, quietly, “Do we have to go to Grammy’s?” And that’s when I started thinking seriously about not going.
It wasn’t a dramatic thing that made me consider it. It was the memory of last Christmas.
Leo was in second grade last year, and reading was a wobble. Not a disaster. He could read his own graphic novels at home, but he got tangled up when reading out loud to other people. He mixed up b and d, skipped small words, and then apologized for being slow. The school had him in a small intervention group, and I had mentioned this to my parents in passing, hoping to set expectations. I don’t think they heard me. Or maybe they heard me but didn’t believe me, because grandparents often assume a lack of fluency is just a need for practice.
On Christmas morning, my mother handed Leo a note she’d written: “Bring this to the kitchen and read it to me, sweetheart.” He was excited at first. It was a little secret mission. But he read “coffee” and “please” and then hit the word “something.” He stalled, then said “some-thing,” sounding it out, and my father—who has never had much of a filter—said, “You’re in second grade now. Come on. Sound it out again. That’s how we learned.”
Leo folded the note, put it in his pocket, and said he didn’t want to do the kitchen mission anymore. He sat by the tree for the next hour, picking at the carpet. My mother shrugged it off as exhaustion. “All this excitement,” she said. But I knew what it really was. It wasn’t that he couldn’t read the word. In his head, he could. But performing reading in front of his grandfather, with no practice, no escape, and an audience that expected a flawless performance? That’s a whole different task.
This is something I’ve learned from teachers over the past few years. Reading out loud is a performance. It combines decoding, memory, and emotional regulation all at once. A child who reads comfortably on the couch can freeze in another setting. It’s not contradictory. It’s just about how much is being asked at once. The more we push or tease, the tighter the freeze becomes.
After that trip, I couldn’t stop replaying the moment. I kept thinking about how Leo had floated around the house in the morning, telling us all about his Minecraft world, and how he’d gone quiet after the note. He didn’t talk about Grammy or Grandpa for a week. When I asked if he was still thinking about Christmas, he didn’t say yes or no. He just shrugged. That shrug was harder to deal with than a tantrum.
So this year, I’ve been taking a different approach. I’m not asking my parents to be “more understanding.” That phrase means nothing, and I’ve learned that. Instead, I’ve tried giving them small, concrete instructions. I told my mother on that same phone call, “If you want Leo to share something, don’t ask him to read a note. Ask him to show you his Minecraft world. He will talk your ear off.” She said, “Oh, I didn’t know he was still into that game.” That was the point. There are ways for him to feel comfortable.
I also sat with Leo and told him we were still deciding about Christmas. But I told him that if we did go, I would give him a signal—a hand on his shoulder—which meant he could go to the guest room for ten minutes without anyone asking questions. I said I would talk to Grammy first about a few boundaries. He thought about it and said, “Can we have practice Christmas at home first?”
That was a remarkably practical idea. His teacher had mentioned something similar: rehearsing social situations helps kids who struggle in them. The more familiar the script, the less overwhelming the moment. So we decided to do a dry run. We made a list of things he could say if someone commented on his reading. “I’m still working on that.” “I’d rather tell you a story than read one.” We practiced saying them until they sounded neutral, not defensive. He actually laughed once, which felt good.
The dry run isn’t about being fake. It’s about giving him a ramp instead of a hurdle. In a classroom, a ramp is a teacher letting a kid pre-read a passage before reading it aloud. In a family living room, a ramp is a code word, a note in his pocket that says “It’s okay to take a break,” or a grandfather who has been kindly asked to hold off on the reading commentary.
But I’m also honest with myself, because this isn’t just about Leo. My mother has a way of making me feel like I’m still twelve years old. She critiques how I fold laundry, how I cut vegetables, how long I let the kids watch screens. Last winter, she watched me zip Leo’s jacket and said, “You’ll make him weak. Let him get cold.” She meant it as a joke, maybe, but it didn’t land. So I have to separate my own discomfort from my son’s. Part of me might be using his reading wobble as an excuse to skip a visit I’d rather not make. That’s a real possibility. It doesn’t cancel out his needs, but it means I should be honest about what’s driving the decision.
My husband likes to say that we’re not responsible for their feelings. That sounds harsher than it works in practice. My parents are getting older. My mother mentioned in a quieter moment that she doesn’t know how many more Christmas mornings she’ll get to see. That’s not guilt—it’s just the truth. So skipping Christmas entirely feels heavy.
What we’ve settled on is a middle path. We’ll see how the dry run goes. We’ll drive out early, but we’ll have the hotel reservation, and we’ll leave the day after. Leo and I will review the list of phrases before we walk in. If he touches my elbow, I’ll ask for his help with something in the kitchen, and the two of us will take a breather together. I still haven’t decided if I’ll send my mother a note about the reading thing. Part of me wants to give her the benefit of the doubt. Part of me remembers how quickly a note can become a gravestone on the kitchen counter.
Last night, after the dry run, Leo said, “I don’t want to skip Grammy. I just want to not feel bad.” That’s the real question, isn’t it? Not whether we go, but whether my parents can be part of a Christmas that doesn’t make Leo feel like he’s behind. I don’t know if I can make them do that. I can only control the ramp I build on my side. So we’ll try. If it goes sideways, there’s always the guest room, the hand on his shoulder, and the long drive home.
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