When your job includes vacation time, it’s important to use those vacation days wisely.

Traveling to visit family and going on vacation are far from the same thing, so scheduling days off for both types of travel can be important.

In today’s story, one woman’s sister doesn’t think she’s prioritizing her vacation time correctly.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

AITA for not shortening my holiday to use more vacation days for my sister‘s graduation?

I (28F) have a sister (24F) who will be graduating next April with her bachelor’s degree.

For context, she and I live in different countries.

While she’s still studying, I just recently found a new job after a long period of unemployment.

This unemployed forced me to cancel a holiday I had planned with my long time partner (we live together) for this past May.

She would really like to go to her sister’s graduation.

Now that I’m employed, I can finally start planning that holiday again for next year.

Meanwhile, my sister will be graduating in April, and I told her I’d love to fly over to celebrate with her.

However, she told me she’ll only know the exact date of her graduation about a week beforehand. This is a problem for me, as I need to request time off in advance to secure holidays.

Additionally, it’s close to Easter, so flights will be hard to find and likely very expensive if I don’t book enough in advance. Despite all that, I planned and reassured her that I would do my best to take two days off and come for her graduation ceremony.

Her sister thinks she should prioritize attending her graduation.

At my job, I get 26 days of holiday per year.

I plan to use 17 days for my holiday with my partner and thought of splitting the remaining days between my sister’s graduation and visiting family for Christmas.

When I expressed these concerns, my sister got really upset, calling me selfish for not prioritizing her over my holiday.

She argued that, since I know the general timeframe, I should have already requested time off accordingly.

However, doing so would mean taking more than a week off, as I’d need to cover the graduation range (April 9–15), plus travel time and extra days just in case (in case her graduation is on the 14th or 15th, I’d need to stay until at least Friday 19th for any celebrations).

Her family is on her sister’s side.

According to her, I should take April 8–20 off to be safe, which would require using eight working days.

I explained that this would leave me with no days to visit for Christmas.

She yelled at me, insisting that I should have planned a shorter holiday with my partner to ensure I could be there for her graduation.

My parents are siding with her, saying that I’m making her feel unimportant and that family should come first.

No matter how much I try to explain, they just tell me I’m being selfish.

AITA for not changing my holiday plans with my partner to set aside more days for my sister’s graduation and Christmas?

I’ve never heard of a school not scheduling graduation ceremonies well in advance.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted…

Her sister must be the favorite.

Surely she has to know her graduation date.

It’s pretty easy to find out a graduation date.

OP deserves a real vacation.

Her sister is going to be in for a shock when she starts working!

I’d try going to the college website and looking up the graduation date.

Something definitely seems fishy.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.