While some people love the holiday season, for others it’s a time of near-constant dread.

For the sisters in this story, their father’s narcissistic behavior is enough to make them want to swear off the holidays for good.

So imagine their shock when they make concessions for the good of the family, only to be ganged up on by other family members.

Read on to find out how this messy family drama panned out.

AITA for not going to Thanksgiving with my dad’s side of the family?

My sister and I (she’s 19 and I’m 17) both do not have a relationship with our dad.

He was and still is extremely manipulative and narcissistic.

It took both my sister and I a very long time to cut him off. He now no longer has legal custody of me. My brother (21) and my younger sister (10) still see him.

They thought they should spend Thanksgiving with their dad’s side of the family.

My sister and I deliberated for a long time on if we were going to attend Thanksgiving this year with my dad’s side of the family.

My dad bad mouths us all the time to his family and even to our sister, saying that we hate all of them and we cut him off to hurt him (we did it for our own mental health and wellbeing).

So we decided we should go this year to be the bigger people.

We texted our grandparents to let them know we were planning on attending, and they asked talk to us beforehand.

Let the holiday drama commence!

The conversation didn’t go well.

They basically told us they were not willing to have a relationship with us outside of my dad, and if we weren’t willing to have a relationship with my dad and either call him or go to his house in person to talk to him, we were not welcome at Thanksgiving.

They also said that last Christmas there was visible tension between my sister, my dad and I, and that it hurt them.

My sister and I both let our dad hug us on Christmas, and when he asked how we were we responded. We were trying to keep the peace around the holidays, but this was not the case for them I guess.

Uh-oh. Let’s see how the sisters responded.

My sister and I were appalled at their stipulation of “no relationship with dad = no Thanksgiving,” so we decided that we both were not comfortable speaking to my dad, and it would be best to not go this year.

We knew there would be repercussions to this decision, especially with my brother.

We spoke to my younger sister about us not going and reminded her that we love her.

She also mentioned some other things she overheard that sealed the deal for us.

Read on to find out how this situation developed.

Fast forward to today, my brother came to our house and asked my sister what time we were planning on being there tomorrow.

She told him that we were not going because of the conversation we’d had with them.

He stormed out of our house saying that he wasn’t going to be there on Saturday at my mom’s dinner with her side of the family.

Now their mom is upset.

My mom overheard this and she has been so upset and sad ever since. My brother often sides with my dad and believes that she’s the horrible one in this situation.

She has always been loving, supportive, and kind. She tries to keep the peace as much as possible, even with my brother and my dad coming after her all the time.

I hate to see my mom upset.

I’m starting to think I should have just sucked it up and talked to my dad and gone to keep the peace, but that really crosses my boundaries – even thinking about my dad makes me want to puke. But I feel terrible about what this has done to my mom and her relationship with my brother.

AITA?

Boundaries are in place for a reason.

In situations like this, meddling family and guilt-tripping parents might always try to get around your boundaries; it’s up to you and your own resolve to keep them in place.

Let’s see how the folks on Reddit responded to this.

This commenter encouraged the girl to hold onto the good people in her life.

And this person urged her and her sister to stay strong.

While others called out the grandparents for their role in the drama.

And the brother was complicit in the problems too.

Family isn’t the most important thing when those around you are toxic and harmful to your mental health.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.