How Couples Can Stop Repeating the Same Holiday Fight, According to ‘After Bedtime’

If you’re already walking into Thanksgiving with a tight jaw and a short fuse, Kristin Gallant gets it. On After Bedtime, the Big Little Feelings co-founder sits down with her husband Tyler to deconstruct why the holidays feel so intense for couples who genuinely love each other but keep ending up in the same fight.

“Moms carry, you know, almost everything during the holidays,” Kristin points out. The planning, the packing, the outfits, the sleep schedules, the emotional temperature of the whole house—it lives in her brain weeks in advance. Tyler admits that “you guys slow burn the anxiety,” while dads just “freebase the anxiety the day before.”

The episode breaks down what that really looks like in a modern family, and how to shift out of holiday tornado mode together.

The invisible work no one sees

If you’ve ever been the one holding the holiday together behind the scenes, you know exactly what Kristin means when she says women are inevitably planning weeks (if not months) in advance. It’s the mental list running while you’re trying to answer emails, the quiet calculation of sleep schedules, travel logistics, in-law dynamics, and whether the turkey order deadline at Whole Foods has already come and gone.

Tyler tries to explain the other side—the dad brain that doesn’t panic until the day before—but even he admits, “The mental load is not shared.” And that’s the core tension. One partner living three weeks ahead in their mind, the other realizing it’s Thanksgiving the Tuesday before. The work stays invisible because it’s done silently until something goes wrong.

The fantasy, the reality, and the resentment

“Every dad wants to be the sit on the couch dad and do nothing,” Tyler says. And honestly? That’s the fantasy a lot of partners secretly hold—the idea that a holiday is a free pass to zone out, eat good food, and disappear into a football game while someone else keeps the kids alive and the kitchen moving.

But reality hits fast. “You can’t be that guy,” Tyler states. “If you were that guy I wouldn’t be married to you,” Kristin retorts. Someone has to take care of the kids, rinse the dishes, run interference on overstimulation, and step in when the day starts to slide into chaos. If not, that’s where resentment builds. One person assumes rest is allowed. The other hasn’t rested in weeks. And unless both people name what they’re hoping for and what they actually need, the holiday will feel heavier than it has to.

Childhood still shapes the way adults show up now on the holidays

One of the most revealing moments comes when Tyler finally explains why holidays never land for him the way they do for Kristin. “I don’t connect to holidays,” he says. His childhood was a mix of rigid structure, divorce, and emotional disconnect. His mom stopped doing holidays entirely. His dad made them so structured they became joyless. Tyler describes birthdays as a low point, saying, “we never had birthday parties,” and the last one he remembers “was terrible.” 

So when he becomes an adult, the instinct isn’t to create magic—it’s to brace for impact. These holidays trigger old emotional muscle memory for him.Your childhood shapes what “special” feels like, what pressure feels like, and how much emotional weight they carry into the day before they even start cooking.

What breaking the pattern really looks like

Kristin and Tyler shift out of the confessions and into something way more useful: the actual steps they take so they don’t end up in the same holiday spiral every year. 

Kristin’s first rule is simple: call it out before it blows up. She wants them talking about the stress before the turkey hits the oven, naming the parts where each of them tends to unravel. “Call it out before it happens,” she says, because nothing disarms resentment faster than saying, “I know my patterns, and I don’t want to repeat them.”

Next is the piece that truly shifts the dynamic: divide the invisible roles. Not in a “tell me what to do” way—in a “let’s agree on who owns what” way. If one cooks, the other handles dishes. One manages the kids, the other runs point on the in-law who needs constant directional support. It sounds small, but this is the part that tackles the mental load instead of just rearranging chores.

And then there’s the smartest rule: create an exit plan. If one of them hits the yellow zone, they walk away before it becomes red. No martyring, no simmering, no public meltdown.

It’s not fancy. It’s not perfect. But in the end, their message is simple: the holidays get lighter the moment you stop pretending you can carry them alone.

To get more insights, listen to After Bedtime with Big Little Feelings wherever you get your podcasts.

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