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  • How To Handle the Delirious Christmas Houseguest and It’s Not Santa
  • Creative Etiquette Solutions

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How To Handle the Delirious Christmas Houseguest and It’s Not Santa
My question is about having a Christmas houseguest and I don’t mean Santa. 
     I just got a text from a friend, whom we socialize with over the summer, asking if she and her husband could stay in our guesthouse for the week of Christmas.
     Her text began: BIG ASK. I’ll say. that’s a big ask! 
 
      They stayed in our guesthouse for a week last May for their daughter’s wedding and we went all out, without feeling much appreciation in return. Inexplicably, I immediately texted SURE.
     But now we’re having a change of heart. 
     We really don’t enjoy their company very much and, as I said, we don’t feel appreciated.
     How do we get out of this?

–RK, Newport, RI

As soon as you read this, text your would-be-Christmas-houseguest to say, “I answered your BIG ASK text too quickly. We cannot possibly have you staying with us for a week over Christmas. We have other plans.”
  • Leave it at that.
  • No lies (the Plans could be that you hadn’t really planned on having them to visit).
  • If she asks why not? Say, “It is not a good time for us to have houseguests.”
  • Should she persist. say, “Xmas week is not a good time to visit.”

~Didi

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