The holiday season tends to be a time when we focus on home. Maybe you’re going “home” to where you grew up—which may be fun for you, or not. Maybe you’re making an effort to arrange the holidays the way you experienced them as a child—or the opposite. Maybe you’re feeling sad, or happy, about whom you will or won’t be seeing.
It seems that one of the biggest happiness challenges of the holidays is dealing with difficult relatives. You want to have a nice dinner, but Uncle Bobby makes you crazy. What to do?
1. Plan ahead.
Spend a few minutes thinking about how youwant to behave ahead of time. If you’ve had unpleasant experiences in the past, think about whythey were unpleasant and what you could do to change the dynamics of the situation. Get more sleep. Give yourself more travel time. Choose a seat far away from Uncle Bobby.
2. Be conscientious.
Think about how topics that seem innocuous to you might upset someone else. You may think you’re showing a polite interest, but some questions will rub a person the wrong way: “So do you have a girlfriend yet?” “When are you two going to get married/start a family?” “Can you afford that?” Show an interest with more open-ended questions, like “What are you up to these days?” or “What’s keeping you busy?”
3. Avoid drama.
Some families enjoy arguing passionately amongst themselves; however, most don’t handle arguments very well. If you know Uncle Bobby’s view of the election is going to drive you crazy, don’t bring it up! And if he brings it up, you don’t have to engage. Try to make a joke of it, and say something like, “Let’s agree to disagree,” “Let’s not talk about that, and give the rest of the family something to be thankful for,” etc.
4. Drink in moderation.
It can seem festive and fun to fill up your glass, but it’s easy to lose track of how much you’re drinking. Alcohol makes some people feel merry, but it also makes some people feel combative, or self-pitying, or lowers their inhibitions in a destructive way.
5. Be accommodating.
For some people, traditions are very, very important; for others, no. You may feel irritated by your brother’s insistence on having exactly the same food every Thanksgiving, or by your mother’s extreme reaction to your suggestion that you eat dinner an hour earlier. Try to be patient and play your part. In the long run, traditions and ritualstend to help sustain happiness and family bonds. On the other hand…
6. Let go and let live.
If you’re the one who wants everything to be perfect, try to ease up on yourself and everyone else, so you can enjoy the day, whatever happens. Even if the day isn’t exactly the way you hoped it would be, try to enjoy what it is.
7. Find some fun.
Just because something is fun for someone elsedoesn’t mean it’s fun for you, and vice versa. If the time with your relatives is meant to be fun, make sure you’re spending at least some time doing something that’s fun for you. Working in the kitchen, playing touch football, sitting around talking, running errands, watching the parade on TV—these things may or may not be fun for you, no matter how the rest of the family feels.
8. Find reasons to be grateful.
Be thankful that you get to cook, or that you don’t have to cook. Be thankful that you get to travel, or that you don’t have to travel. Be thankful for your family or your friends. Be grateful for electricity and running water. Find something. Studies show that gratitude is a major happiness booster.Also, feeling grateful toward someone crowds out emotions like resentment and annoyance.
Wait, you might be thinking, these strategies don’t tell me how to deal with my difficult relatives—they tell me how to behave myself. Well, guess what? You can’t change what your relatives are going to do; you can only change yourself.But when youchange, a relationship changes as well.