Survival Tips for Holidays with Difficult People, AKA, Home for the Holidays!
I’m hearing from many folks these days about their fears of being with families of origin over the holidays. Fears of getting into fights about political differences. Fears of being expected to conform to religious language and practices that no longer fit. Fears of being ridiculed about life choices or decisions. Fears of family members getting drunk, or abusive. Most often, the fear of loneliness, right there in the middle of the family.
So here are some survival tips. These are ways to stay present with yourself, so even if no one else sees you, you’ve still got a witness! You’ve decided, for presumably good reasons, that you want to be with your family, or your in-laws’ family, for the holidays. So you can also decide to make the visit fun, even if you have to work at it. Here are some tactics I’ve used on different occasions—may they be of use to you!
1. Remind yourself, in advance, about why you love each person who will be there. Call up that memory and dwell on it while they are holding forth on a topic you do not want to hear about it. If they seem to be waiting for your comment on their favorite Fox News show, just smile a little bit and say, “Hmmm. Sorry, I spaced out. I was just remembering when we were kids and we built that treehouse! That was so fun!”
2. For some elderly relatives, keeping them focused on favorite parts of their past can be much more fun than hearing their frustrations about the present. They may be lonely, or in chronic pain, or bitter right now, but that doesn’t mean they always were. Think about parts of their lives you are interested in, and ask them questions. Childhood may or may not be a good place to start. One question I’ve found can open doors is, Looking back, what would you say was the happiest time of your life? And then dig in there.
3. Try responding to negativity or bitterness with observations about the weather. (This tip could have saved me years of therapy. It helped me to realize that people who were complaining usually were not asking me to make their lives better—they simply wanted to complain!)
4. Program your smartphone with the names of some of your closest support network in chat or instant message, so that on a quick trip to the bathroom, you can cry out for help, share the awful thing someone just said or just say, “Remind me that I am loveable.” Technology can allow you to have in-the-moment support. I suggest 5 or 6 people at once so that at least one of them can get back to you before your hands are washed!
5. Again with a smartphone, scroll through the newsfeed on your facebook page. Remind yourself there is life outside of your family!
6. If you don’t have a smartphone, try some old fashioned ways to take friends with you. Have them write affirmations, jokes, or poems for you to open and read when needed.
7. There’s always the good-old bingo card. Just making it is a kind of inoculation! Make a bingo card with words or topics that are likely to come up and upset you. Then, when they say hard things, at least you can work your way towards a bingo! Possible squares: Grandchildren, weight loss, your haircut, better job, Obamacare, gay marriage, people who are going to hell.
8. At meals, ask to sit at the kids’ table. You’ll be lifted up as a hero and you’ll probably have more fun.
9. Remind yourself that, as annoying and frustrating these people are, they are yours, and you will miss them when they are gone!
And, Happy Holidays, to you and your kin!
The Pragmatic Believer
Source: Google Images Creative Commons
This time of year also fills me with a number of conflicting emotions. As someone who was raised Catholic, I might be considered a metaphorical Christian by some. Nonetheless, I am very much Unitarian when it comes to my theological beliefs – a Pragmatic Believer of sorts – so Christmas holds no almost no religious significance to me. It does, however, hold a great deal of spiritual significance for me. I love Christmas for its glitter and lights, uplifting carols and delicious cookies, generosity and thanks-giving, time with family and friends, and its somewhat romantic nostalgia. But, the religious humanist in me cringes at the commercialization of the Christmas holiday and the general assumption that all who celebrate Christmas hold tight to Christian theology.
Throughout the entire month of December I find myself thinking: Where does this holiday fit into my faith and spiritual life? And where do I fit into the holiday?
I first heard the poem “Mary” by Philip Appleman at church a few years ago. I enjoy reading it every holiday season as I struggle with the many conflicting emotions and beliefs that I have about Christmas. Regardless of religious affiliation, I find the poem to be a universally powerful reminder of the importance of considering alternate perspectives and the role of the Pragmatic Believer.
Mary by Philip Appleman
Years later, it was, after everything
got hazy in my head – those buzzing flies,
the gossips, graybeards, hustling evangelists –
they wanted facts, they said,
but what they were really after,
was miracles.
Miracles, imagine! I was only a girl
when it happened, Joseph
acting edgy and claiming
it wasn’t his baby – – –
Anyway, years later
they wanted miracles, like the big-time cults
up in Rome and Athens, God
come down in a shower of coins,
a sexy swan, something like that.
But no, there was only
one wild-eyed man at our kitchen window
telling me I’m lucky.
And pregnant.
I said, “Talk sense mister, it’s got to be
the one thing or the other.”
No big swans, no golden coins
in that grubby mule-and-donkey village. Still,
they wanted miracles,
and what could I tell them? He
was my baby, after all, I washed
his little bum, was I
supposed to think I was wiping
God Almighty?
But they wanted miracles, kept after me
to come up with one: “This fellow at the window,
did he by any chance have wings?”
Wings! Do frogs have wings?
Do camels fly?
They thought it over. “Cherubim”, they said,
“may walk the earth like men
and work their wonders.”
I laughed in their hairy faces. No
cherub, that guy! But
they wouldn’t quit – fanatics, like
the gang he fell in with years ago’
all goading him till he began to believe
in quick cures and faith healing,
just like the cranks in Jerusalem, every
phony in town speaking in tongues
and handling snakes. Not exactly
what you’d want for your son, is it?
I tried to warn him, but he just says,
“I must be about my father’s business.”
“Fine,” I say, “I’ll buy you a new
hammer.” But nothing could stop him, already
hooked on the crowds, the hosannas,
the thrill of needling the bureaucrats.
Holier than thou, he got, roughing up
the rabbis even. Every night
I cried myself to sleep – my son,
my baby boy – – –
You know how it all turned out, the crunch
of those awful spikes,
the spear in his side, the whole town watching,
home-town folks come down from Nazareth
with a strange gleam in their eyes. Then later on
the grave robbers, the hucksters, the imposters all
claiming to be him. I was sick
for a year, his bloody image
blurring the sunlight.
And now they want miracles, God
at my maidenhead, sex without sin.
“Go home,” I tell them, “back to your libraries,
read about your fancy Greeks,
and come up with something amazing, if you must.”
Me, I’m just a small-town woman,
a carpenter’s wife, Jewish mother, nothing
special. But listen,
whenever I told my baby a fairy tale,
I let him know it was a fairy tale.
Go, all of you, and do likewise.
A Prayer for the Day After Thanksgiving
May we remember that thanks-giving isn’t a day or a celebration. May we remember that the act of giving thanks is a daily commitment, an intentional act of love, a spiritual practice of sorts, and an understanding that we are all a little broken, that we are all desperately in need of grace. The act of giving thanks is gritty and clumsy, awkward and vulnerable, constant and filled with kind truth.
May we remember that gratitude is a peaceful appreciation for the absolute privilege of life, with its inherent flaws, messiness, and organized chaos. May we remember that gratitude isn’t just obligatory thank-you’s for gifts and favors or bold professions of our blessings. Gratitude is a deeply felt inner truth, a delicate art form to be practiced, and refined over the course of a lifetime.
As we move further into the holiday season, may we remember that it is a season of gratitude, abundantly full of the connective fibers of life and the very essence of what it means to be alive.
Impatiently Waiting to Patiently Wait
It’s December 8 already; one third of the way through the Advent calendar that I still haven’t dug out of the basement closet and put up. We did manage to put up the tree, and even decorate it this year, Thanksgiving being so early and all. (Last year we opted for the naked look).
Noooooo, my soul moans, don’t let these precious days slide by unnoticed! I always have this fantasy of spending December sipping tea and sitting on the couch with loved ones, admiring the lights of the Christmas tree, maybe while listening to some of our favorite music. And it always turns out that I’m just proud to remember to water our tree as I run by.
I don’t know why it took me this long to realize it, but it’s suddenly become clear to me that if I am going to get any waiting done this month, I’m going to have to plan for it.
Time was, waiting just happened. When I was a kid, my sibs and I allocated the rotation of December days, jostling for which little cardboard doors of that sparkly advent calendar were ours to open. (Since we used the same advent calendar every year, some of the doors were torn off…so if you got those days assigned to you, you had to just pretend to open a door. Obviously none of us wanted those days.) Time was, perusing the Sears or Penney’s catalogue, both to make my list and then to fantasize about what Santa might bring me, took up a number of hours each week. Time was, the days leading up to Christmas felt like an enormous mountain to climb, and it seemed like we would never get there!
Now the days feel more like a landslide behind me which I am trying to outrun as I scoot down that mountain as fast as I can. Donnnn’tttt loookkkkk baaaacccckkkkkkkkkk!!!!!
So, it occurs to me belatedly, if I really want to do it, I need to put waiting on my calendar. Now for me, the word “waiting” and the word “impatient” seem to be grafted onto the same tree trunk. Often, when I am waiting, I am wishing away that time, not fully there at all. If I’m not crabby, it’s because I’m distracting myself, playing Scrabble on my iPhone in the long check out line, or talking on the phone while I sit outside my kid’s school. That’s not what I need to calendarize. I have plenty of that! There should be a different word for this intention to cultivate patient waiting.
Years ago, my office bought a new phone answering system, and for some reason the wait between punching in the extension you wanted and getting that person on the phone was insanely long. Probably two full minutes. No matter what kind of music we tried putting on it, people were inevitably crabby when they finally got to us. Finally, someone had the wise idea to change our answering machine. When you called, you got this message:
“After you push in your party’s extension, please enjoy an extended time of silence to meditate and pray.” And then, rather than playing music, it was completely quiet. After that, the voices that spoke from our answering machine ceased being frustrated and angry, and instead, greeted us with words like, “Wow! I’m going to start calling here every day just to enjoy that quiet!” or “I wish that had lasted a little longer!” (Someone from the Washington Post business section even got wind of it, and put a little blurb in about us entitled, “Just pray someone answers.”) It was all about creating space just for waiting.
For me, I think, that space is most accessible early in the morning, before anyone wants anything from me, and late at night, after anyone wants anything from me. It will be dark during both of those time periods. And the house will be quiet. But the trick is, I have to turn my mind toward intentionally waiting. Not making my day’s to do list in the morning or thinking with regret of everything I didn’t accomplish at night’s end. Just sitting in a place of anticipation, expectation, even longing.
My favorite line in a Christmas carol is “Let every heart prepare Him room.” That’s what I want to do during my daily times of waiting: prepare the room, just as I do when a guest I love is coming to stay with me. I clean, I put on fresh sheets and sometimes even put out fresh flowers. Which is to say that I won’t be tweeing, emailing, calling, texting, IMing, skyping, zooming, or otherwise pinging you during those times.
I want to be offline, but thoroughly plugged in. (I’ll let you know how it goes.)