How to keep the holidays from becoming hellidays
Even if your extended family is the best group of people, no group of ten or larger is without at least one or two people that will drive you crazy the whole time. There is no way you can get through an all day Christmas gathering with your sanity unless you have some great coping skills. I have decided to share with you what I do each year to keep from having a meltdown on those few people that I share blood with - but can’t share air with. Feel free to use any of my following methods if you think they will help you.
Step 1: Find your ally:
You more than likely already know who your ally is. It could be your sister, your cousin, or even your crazy uncle. The second you see them alone at the Christmas gathering, remind them of this, “Thank goodness you’re here, Bud. It’s us against them today. Just remember, when either one of us wants to blow up on one of these crazy people, we are instead going to lock eyes with each other, so one of us can communicate this to the other one: “Yes, you are right to start yelling at Cousin Wayne for the snide thing he just said. But it’s not worth it. You can vent to me in the kitchen about it when no one’s around.””
Step 2: Make a game out of the day!
You and your ally can make a competition out of the family Christmas gathering by trying to predict which inevitably annoying behavior will come from which annoying relative first. You can say, “I bet you five dollars that at some point during dinner, Aunt Edna will say something about how much she misses the potato salad that Me-Maw used bring to Christmas when she was still alive. She’ll of course say this while eating her sister’s potato salad, as a way to let her know she thinks she’s a lousy cook.”
Your ally will respond with something like:
“Yeah, well I’ll bet you that before that potato salad incident happens, Grandpa will make everyone uncomfortable when he asks Cousin Pete why he didn’t bring a girlfriend to Christmas this year. We all know why Pete never has a girlfriend, but Grandpa still feels the need to pretend there’s a chance. I will definitely bet you five bucks that happens first.”
You see, if you bet money on the bad things that will happen at Christmas, there is a chance you will smile when these bad things actually happen, since you just won money from it.
Step 3: Incite a pile-on.
There are always some relatives that are noticeably absent at the family Christmas gathering each year. And you know it’s a matter of time before your relatives start talking trash about them. So why not speed up the process! Sure, you have no problem with Uncle Roscoe for always spending Christmas with his wife’s family. Heck, you would too, if you had the option - those people are awesome! But since Roscoe’s not with you, and your aunts are going to bad mouth him anyway, why not get it started early by “innocently” asking, “Hey, where’s Uncle Roscoe? Isn’t he coming for Christmas dinner this year?” And then sit back and be secretly amused as your relatives do exactly what you tricked them into doing when they start saying how awful Uncle Roscoe is. Sure, what they are doing is rude and you hate it. But you’ll at least be able to enjoy it a little bit since you now know that these people are your conversational pawns - even though they don’t know it. Especially since they don’t know it.
If my holiday coping methods help at least one person get through a difficult Christmas, then I’ve done my job. Plus, that’s one less family holiday crime story I have to write about for the paper. So in a way, it will mean I don’t have to do my job, and I’m all about minimizing my work load.
You may think my methods for dealing with family are sinister or too sneaky, but that’s not exactly accurate. Think about it. What exactly have these games I play at Christmas changed? Not much. My family still engages in all the behavior they were going to anyway - I just dictate at what point in the evening they do it. And as for me, I’m now having so much fun with the way they act, that I don’t have to respond to them by yelling and telling them how terrible they are! So in a way, by being manipulative, I’m actually being the moral one, keeping the peace around the holidays. And the holidays are all about peace on earth, or at least around the house for a day.
(If you don’t want to go to all this trouble, you can also take the simple route and just spike your own drinks. That works, too.)