We talked to three people facing a moral crisis, and they were reconciling family celebrations with the risks posed by the coronavirus.

Last modified on Saturday, December 4, 2021 11.05 EST

Christmas is supposed to be a joyous time, but for many families, it can highlight differences between parents, children, or siblings and bring unresolved tensions to the surface. This year has added a special question to this dynamic-whether individual family members have been vaccinated.

My mother is over 60 years old, and she has been an anti-vaccine person all her life. Before I became an adult, I did not receive any vaccinations.

My parents are divorced and I have three brothers and sisters. My two sisters were not vaccinated either, but my brother and father were vaccinated like me.

My mother is worried about meeting her vaccinated child at Christmas. She thinks that our vaccine will "flow" into her body, which is absurd. My 59-year-old father does not want to host his unvaccinated children indoors during Christmas. He hopes that all of us will exchange gifts with him outdoors and do PCR tests in advance.

My two unvaccinated siblings and I finally decided that the three of us would spend Christmas together at my sister's house. My vaccinated fraternity will spend it with his children, but will come and see us. He was infected with Covid, so he felt invincible, and I was young, healthy and vaccinated, so I felt that my personal risk was very low.

Before meeting, we will conduct a lateral flow test, and none of us have any pre-existing medical conditions.

On the one hand, I am glad that I did not spend Christmas with my parents, because all the discussions about vaccines and Covid can be a bit overwhelming. It would be nice to spend time with my brothers and sisters. But at the same time, I think this is a shame-my parents are upset about it, especially my father. He really hopes that all his children will be vaccinated and that we all have Christmas dinner together.

My father is a well-educated chronic disease professional, and my stepmother works in the NHS and has not been vaccinated. They are all over 60 years old.

In order to maintain a normal relationship, I will meet them on Christmas for the shortest time-only about an hour. If it was any other day, I would not see them, but because it was Christmas, I felt obligated to do so.

I had dozens of conversations with my father, trying to persuade him to get vaccinated. I also wrote a long email to him, questioning the source data of the article he sent me. He gets information from Facebook and Telegram groups, David Icke and Piers Corbyn and others, and random websites that sell herbs.

My brother will not visit my dad as usual this year. After visiting my mother and my in-laws for the first time, we will visit him last, they are very fragile-we had to plan like this.

The reason I met him was to keep the peace, because I don't want our relationship to die. But my dad and my 7-year-old daughter adore each other, and I worry that when they meet, she will bring him Covid.

I almost accept that he will get sick and die before it happens. There are many cases in her school.

I hope that more people will accept that they can change their views on vaccines; in fact, the decision you made a year ago is not necessarily a decision you continue to insist on. If my dad said: In retrospect, my view of risk is wrong, or I really want to see my son, and I want to be vaccinated, it will be my year. That will be the ultimate Christmas gift.

I have multiple sclerosis and have been fully vaccinated, but my husband, who is in his 60s and has many chronic diseases, has not been vaccinated. He doesn't even wear a mask.

He will not be tested for COVID-19, so this means that we cannot visit his 90-year-old father who lives in a nursing home on Christmas Day. They have not seen each other for two years.

My husband and I have had a lot of long-term arguments about vaccines. I sent him articles from The Guardian and The Observer, and for months I have been trying to convince him that he was wrong. But I have completely given up now. I am tired of all this. I told him that I didn't want to know his theory and ignored him when he talked about it with me.

My 89-year-old mother is coming to accompany us on Christmas. Although she has been fully vaccinated, I am very nervous about it. Her view is: She has experienced war: She can live my husband.

I find this situation very frustrating and frustrating. It's also tiring-I find that I often wander between being angry with my husband and worrying that he will contract Covid.

In order to protect the identity of the interviewee, some names and details have been changed