Dear Prudence,
I’m 43, married, have no kids, and live about three hours from my mom, who is 73 and in decent if not amazing health. I wouldn’t say we’re super close, but we text a few times a week, call once a month or so, and I usually see her one to three times a year. She tends to guilt trip me a bit and puts a lot of pressure around holidays. Some years we’ve made more of an effort to see her around Thanksgiving or Christmas, and some years it’s worked out to see her. But she doesn’t have a lot of extra space for us to stay, I’m just not close to most of my extended family, don’t have any niblings on that side, my grandparents are gone, and my dad lives even further away. (She does have friends and family in the area she can spend holidays with, I’m not a monster here.) Meanwhile, my husband’s family is tighter-knit, they have plenty of extra room, and he has two siblings and two niblings who we don’t get to see a lot. Is it OK for me to mostly skip holidays with my mom? And how often is often enough for us to see each other?
—Under Christmas Pressure