Any time with family can be stressful. Unless your family gets along for real, you are a rare breed. Holiday survival with family can be difficult, but always interesting.
Understand, not everyone is going to get along. I have sometimes dreaded the holidays. There is the know it all, the grumpy stick in the mud, the lingerer, the whiner, the chatter and many more. It’s how you deal with them that gets you through the holidays.
Holiday survival – family
Hosting is worse than just stopping by. Hosts have to wait for everyone to leave and play nice (or kick people out). If you are stopping by, you can leave when you get your fill of family time. Have some place to be somewhere else, like the movies, to move people out of your house.
Ask everyone to bring a dish. This will help take the burden off making everything. Unless you have someone who has a dirty kitchen or a bad cook, then have them bring nothing. You could ask the odd ones to buy something and bring it, like napkins.
Don’t have them arrive early. Ask people to arrive at the time you plan on serving dinner. That gives you less time to have to socialize and less time in your house. And less time for family feuds to happen! Better yet, give them a time 15 minutes AFTER you want to start eating dinner.
Lower your expectations. If you are thinking everyone is going to get along, you need to lower your expectations. Some is going to irritate another, words will be said, leaving someone upset.
Liquor will escalate things quicker. Don’t introduce alcohol into the mix. It will just cause things to escalate and get ugly quicker. Deal with the family sober.
Eat at a restaurant. You get to eat the food you like, no house to clean. No people lingering too long at your house.
Have containers setting out for them to take left overs home. A hint that they can get some left overs to go, as soon as they are done eating. And don’t ever, EVER send them home with Tupperware, go to the dollar stores and get some containers, or better yet, have them bring their own containers.
However you survive, hibernate for another few weeks/months, you’ll have to do it all again.
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