‘Tis the season to be jolly and merry, right? Then how come so many holiday dinners seem to end in near food fights? The yuletide glow of goodwill seems to dull the minute you start passing the mashed potatoes. The bottom line: as much as we all aspire to be the perfect family pictured in the Norman Rockwell painting, the truth is even the closest of clans is bound to have its testy moments.
Don’t cancel the festivities yet. There are steps to take to avoid a holiday eruption that NurseVillage is going to share with you.
First, understand that being realistic about the holidays is not being cynical. If your brother and brother-in-law have never gotten along it’s unreasonable to think that they’ll magically start to see eye-to-eye at Thanksgiving dinner.
Another key to reducing the stress is understanding your own personality type and being prepared to make accommodations. If you’re a laid-back person you’ll want to be aware that anxiety-prone relatives and friends could likely exasperate you. You might want to mix and mingle a little less with those individuals.
Keep the holiday events short and sweet. A lifetime of family resentment can often reveal itself over the course of a three- or four-hour meal. One expert explains that hosts and house guests often go off on each other within as little as eight hours.
Control. Control. Control. Whether you are a host or guest this is a skill to master. If you are the host, this means tactfully managing your guests to minimize clashes. If you are the guest it means using some restraint, suppress the need to criticize or judge others; listen more and talk less.
One of the biggest threats to family harmony comes in a bottle. To dilute the impact of alcohol, have plenty of water available and encourage guests to drink it. When dealing with holiday “spirits” you may have to be self-assertive, even when Aunt Tilly clings to the bottle of Schnapps like it was the last life preserver on the Titanic.
The surefire recipe for the season has been written: hectic hosting duties, simmering family resentment, overstressed spouses; add a healthy helping of whining kids and a three-course meal — Voila! Take our tips and serve up something different this holiday.
