My parents insist we spend all holidays together like when we were kids. Is it rude to want some holidays to ourselves?
Holiday travel and family gatherings remain a major part of life in the U.S., with AAA projecting 72.2 million domestic travelers around the July 4 period in 2025. Within that broader tradition, a common household conflict is whether adult children should still spend every holiday with parents, especially after marriage or long-term partnership.
Family expectations often stay fixed long after childhood
In many families, the expectation to spend every major holiday together was set years earlier, often when children were under 18 and living at home. Therapists interviewed by outlets including The New York Times and CNBC in recent years said that pattern can continue into a person’s 30s or 40s unless someone clearly resets it.
That does not make the parents unusual or automatically overbearing. Family therapist Nedra Glover Tawwab, whose work on boundaries has been widely cited in U.S. media since 2021, has said that relatives often mistake a new boundary for rejection when it is actually a change in routine.
In practical terms, wanting some holidays alone is not widely viewed by clinicians as rude by itself. What matters, according to psychologists quoted by Psychology Today and CNN, is whether the message is delivered respectfully, early, and consistently rather than at the last minute on Thanksgiving morning or December 24.
What this looks like in real households across the U.S.
For many couples, the conflict is not about one dinner but about the annual calendar. Pew Research Center has repeatedly documented how adult family relationships in the U.S. are shaped by marriage, distance, work schedules, and caregiving, all of which can make attending every holiday unrealistic.
The details also matter. A couple in Chicago may be balancing two sets of parents in Illinois, while another household in Phoenix may be dealing with airfare costs that rose sharply after 2021, according to federal inflation data and airline pricing trends tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What is not known in any one family is whether the parents are demanding every single holiday or simply assuming old plans still apply. That distinction matters, because etiquette experts including Lizzie Post of the Emily Post Institute have said that declining an invitation is not rude if the response is clear, kind, and timely.
Why the tension happens and what it usually means next
The underlying issue is usually transition, not one specific date. Family researchers and therapists have long said that marriage, cohabitation, new children, grief, relocation, and rotating in-law schedules all change holiday norms, especially between ages 25 and 45 when many adults are building households of their own.
That is why many experts recommend a concrete plan instead of a vague promise. Examples cited by U.S. therapists in 2023 and 2024 media interviews included alternating Thanksgiving every year, reserving December 25 for the couple’s home, or choosing one shared holiday and one private holiday annually.
For most families, the outcome depends less on etiquette rules than on repetition. If a couple states in July 2026 that they will not attend every holiday but will join, for example, Thanksgiving and one December weekend, that gives relatives a specific framework rather than an open-ended rejection. The basic social standard remains straightforward: wanting time to yourselves is common, and respectful notice is the part that counts.
