Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. (It’s anonymous!)
Dear Prudence,
With the holiday season upon us, I have a relatively low-stakes question for you. For context, I work in a department of a large hospital. Each year we do a Secret Santa gift exchange with a $20 limit. We turn in the gifts after they are purchased to our manager who holds onto them until we can come pick them up. The reason I say that is to clarify that there is not a public exchange where you may see what somebody else got, and we are also never told who our Secret Santa was. I think some people share who they had, but for context, I have been with the company for many years and never found out who had me.
The other day, several co-workers and I were talking about the exchange, and one of them mentioned that she never stays within the limit, and always buys more. A couple of other people echoed the same sentiment and said that they find it hard to stick to the limit so some years they’ve spent as much as $100-$120. I find this problematic because as a rule, I always try to stick to limits for these types of exchanges that way everything is fair and equal. I don’t think I’m the only one. It’s a small enough department though that a handful of people aren’t sticking to the limit, that’s a significant amount of the gifts that will be more expensive than others. I don’t want to spend $100 on a Secret Santa, but if the culture of the organization is that, I want to know I can decide if I want to go over the limit or if I should. I am guessing based on the gifts that I was given over the years that at least once or twice my gift was well above $20 worth of small items, but it is so hard to tell. I don’t want to give a bad gift or if somebody finds out their secret Santa is me, I don’t want to be seen as a Scrooge. I wish everybody would play the rules! What say you?
—Santa in Santa Fe
Dear Santa Fe,
What! $100 on a Secret Santa? How can you “have trouble staying within a $20 limit”? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Inflation truly is out of control!
Reading this letter again I’m really wondering: Is there any phase in this process where you could be found out for “only” spending $20? I don’t think so, right? You mention that the only way the Santas are revealed is if you choose to reveal yourselves. If that’s the case, and you didn’t think your gift was meager before you found out about all these overspenders, I don’t see what the problem is. Keep on doing what you’re doing, and enjoy your super-deluxe box of chocolates when the $100 Santa lottery lands on you.
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Dear Prudence,
I’ve been friends with Darrel for a decade. In that time he’s made what I consider bad choices—dating the worst people (married, abusive, actual criminals), quitting every stable full-time job (he’s really smart and has no problem getting jobs in his field) because he prefers to work revolving part-time jobs (fine, but he has health problems and needs health insurance, which he can’t afford). He’s alienated the rest of our friends, and his family is dead. I try to be patient but honest if he asks for my opinion or advice. I have been trying to slowly step back from the friendship. The issue is holidays.
For years, I invited him to join my family dinners. It always goes…poorly. Think: He talked about sexual things with my elderly grandparents, he took a phone call from a hookup in the middle of dinner, he wouldn’t leave until 3 A.M., he got drunk and threw up on my lawn. Last year I sent him home with tons of leftovers because I knew he can’t always afford food, and he returned my containers unwashed and moldy months later. But he always raves about being invited and seems so grateful to have a family to share the holidays with. This year he is asking what time dinner is. I made an excuse for Thanksgiving, but I feel cornered about Christmas. It’s the spirit of the season, right? I should invite him because he’s a good person, and even if he wasn’t, he still deserves a meal, a little present, and to not be alone, right? If I don’t invite him, how can I not feel guilty about it? I’m afraid if I try to talk to him about being a bad guest he’ll feel attacked.
—Give Me Permission to Say No
Dear Say No,
I say this with love: You have a dirtbag friend. There are things you can do to help yourself, if you would like to keep on inviting him to Christmas, which would probably be a karma-positive, spirit-of-the-season thing to do. Put a firm “this party is over at this time” note on the invitation, then kick him out at that time. (Make up an excuse about having to wake up early, and be a jerk about it. Don’t back down!) Maybe don’t serve hard liquor, and/or pull back on the wine near the end of the evening. Definitely don’t give him containers that you care about having returned. With things like the grandparent chat and the hookup phone call, you could perhaps just laugh a bit; isn’t it good to have someone at the function who’s a little bit spicy, so you can tut-tut about it later? And then keep the promise to yourself that you will keep on stepping back from the friendship, starting in January.
Dear Prudence,
My sister-in-law is infertile and makes it everyone’s problem. Every conversation is a minefield. She gets upset if you talk about kids or you don’t talk about kids. She locked herself in the bathroom over a holiday meal because my sister mentioned she was pregnant again. She has screamed at me over my child-free stance and struggle to get sterilized because “how dare I waste my womb when there are other women in the world that want but can’t have babies.”
At Thanksgiving, my fiancé and I announced our engagement and he made a joke about getting used to the “stepkids” (I have some pet goats on my property). My sister-in-law decided to step in and lecture us that wasn’t funny and the wedding would be a waste since we weren’t planning to be a “real” family because we didn’t want kids. I snapped that what did that make her and my brother then? They sure as hell didn’t have any kids.
My sister-in-law predictably turned on the waterworks and locked herself in the guest bedroom while my fiancé and I beat an early retreat from my parents. My brother is furious with me. My parents think I should have just been silent because I know how she gets. My sister told me she wishes she could have witnessed the entire conversation because she is so sick of walking on eggshells around our sister-in-law. We have been sympathetic but after seven years of her drama, we are sick to death about it. My fiancé and I are going to his parents for Christmas but we did have a family vacation set up in the spring. What should we do?
—Final Straw
Dear Final Straw,
Whew, this is a very unfriendly letter. Have you “been sympathetic”? Really? In reading this, I don’t feel like it’s likely you have! She should not have said what she said about your womb (gross); you should definitely have not described her marriage as a waste, which is a far deeper cut than her describing yours that way. You are choosing what you’re choosing; she can’t choose, and obviously feels trapped and desperate in these family contexts where everyone talks about babies and looks over at her to see if she is going to “get” the way that she “gets” or “turn on the waterworks” again.
I think a little time away from one another is going to be good. When you go on vacation in a few months, remember: This person is miserable on an existential level and isn’t doing a perfect job at smothering that misery for your greater comfort. It is better to sit on your hands and let her be that way, during the time you’re together. Try, if you can, to muster up the barest sympathy.
Imagine if you couldn’t choose your own future, the way you can, and are, by choosing not to have kids. Wouldn’t that suck?
I’m glad, at least, that your brother is standing up for her. That’s a good husband.
Catch up on this week’s Prudie.
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Dear Prudence: I just uncovered a shocking scandal in the office Secret Santa exchange. - Slate
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