Chelsea Handler sent 'severe letter' to family after rough vacation: 'Don't drink the last margaritas'

If you're traveling with Chelsea Handler, you better be ready to play by her rulebook.

The comedian and author revealed that she once had to send a "really severe letter" to her entire extended family establishing proper vacation etiquette after she paid to take them all on holiday one year.

"I was like, 'Listen, you have to make eye contact with every person that comes inside the house,'" she recalled while visiting Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday. "'Whether you know them, whether they're cleaning your room, whether you have anything in common, you have to make eye contact with people and say hello, thank you, acknowledge someone is standing there."

"And," she continued, "don’t leave beer bottles under the deck. Don't drink the last margaritas without filling up the pitcher. There was a lot of finishing alcohol without replenishing the alcohol, because half of them are underage-drinking our alcohol."

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The former Chelsea Lately host included other guidelines that everyone would have to agree to moving forward. "You have to be off your phone at dinner. You can't be sitting there when we're engaging and playing a game. You have to be present," she said, running through the letter. "This is what a family vacation is about!"

Her family members were initially stunned by the letter. "They were obviously appalled. They were like, 'Oh my God, now she's yelling at us?'" she recalled. "And I'm like, part of it is my fault — I take responsibility for providing these kinds of extravagant vacations. But I said these are the requirements moving forward. I need everyone to say please and thank you a lot more — not to me, to everyone you come into contact with."

In response, Handler said her family tried to point fingers at one another for their bad behavior. "They were embarrassed," she said. "My brothers and sisters were trying to blame each other's kids, and I'm like, 'Actually, it's directed at you, too. These are your kids. I don't have any kids you can complain about — another home run by me!' So I sent it, and they slowly started saying, 'We're really sorry.'"

After seeing its success with her family, Handler sent the letter to friends as a template to use for their own vacations. Then someone unintentionally paid it forward.

"Three, four months go by — I get the letter from someone," she recalled. "Someone emailed me and goes, 'I just read this letter, and this is a great letter for you to send to your family.' And I'm like, 'It's my letter! I wrote it!'"

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Host Jimmy Kimmel noted that receiving it must have been the "ultimate validation" for her. "I know,” she replied. "It was so funny."

Handler has gone on vacation with her family again since sending the letter — but now she travels with two separate groups. "I now vacation with the kids alone and the adults alone," she said. "I split them up, because then I can be an aunt and have fun and the kids can be real … and then the adults I vacation with alone. So that's my new thing. Yeah. I'm figuring it out."

Watch Handler list her travel requirements in the video above (and feel free to share your thoughts on them in the comments below).

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