If you think you’ve got it bad, think of the poor King, who’s had to deal with yet another scandal involving the Yorks, and has — reportedly — signalled that neither can come to Sandringham for Christmas this year.The Windsor WhatsApp group must be pretty frosty right now.
And we can all sympathise: Who’s going to be where? Who’s arriving when? Will your brother and his wife pinch the best room again on the basis they need to have the en-suite to bathe the children in? Ah Christmas, the season of goodwill towards all men.
Firstly, yes, you can mute the group. Plenty of you may have done this already but, if not, I’d hit that button as soon as possible, and choose ‘Always’. Alternatively, you can turn off notifications altogether, so you only see your WhatsApp messages when you’re in the app. I do this periodically when I find the constant pinging distracting. We’ve become enfeebled slaves to our phones in recent years, but there’s no law that says you have to reply to a message instantly. How I long, sometimes, to have lived in Regency England, when your sister sent you a letter in the penny post, which you read at leisure, and then sent a reply a week or so later. Slow going to work out who’s buying the turkey and who’s in charge of the stilton, admittedly, but more relaxing.
And in fact, if it’s getting heated in the group and there’s passive aggressive squabbling over who’s sleeping where or who’s cooking what, taking a little break from it may allow everyone to simmer down again. Put your phone down. Pick it up later. Careful about side-barring other family members, too. This happens with my own family, from time to time, with a sibling popping up separately to grumble about someone else, but it’s extremely easy, if you’re not concentrating, to stick the wrong message in the wrong group. And that could make for a very awkward dinner table. Mind how you go.
I do think it’s worth remembering, though, that those of us with big and rambunctious families are, by and large, lucky. They may drive you mad from time to time, especially during the festive period, but how wonderful to have a life with lots of people you love, and who love you back. I’ve always remembered an anecdote that my mother told on Christmas, having just darted to Sainsbury’s on Christmas Eve for some vital, forgotten ingredient. The supermarket was like a war zone, she reported wearily afterwards, with people hurtling down the aisles and grabbing from the shelves as if possessed. The queues stretched back from the tills, with trolleys piled high like sleighs. But among all this mania, she noticed an elderly woman, shuffling slowly around by herself, carrying a basket which held only a tin of fish paste and a small loaf of bread. I like to think that she was just picking up a snack and she had a big family to go to the following day. But maybe she didn’t. Count your blessings, in other words.
And if all else fails, you can leave groups more discreetly, these days, because WhatsApp has changed the settings and exiting is no longer broadcast to the whole group, only whoever set it up.
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