Q I’m dreading the holidays. My husband, children, and I split the holidays between each of our families. To reduce the stress, I want to go late and leave early. Am I alone in feeling this way or do other people experience added tension during the holidays? What can I do to make family gatherings more fun?
A You aren’t alone. Many people find family gatherings overwhelming and an assault on their mental health. I can relate to your situation. I eventually learned how to make family gatherings fun. Here are nine suggestions to help you put together a strategy for your family to try:
1. Talk to the family members hosting the events. Tell each host you want to make the event fun by adding games and activities. Enlist one or more relatives to help you with games.
2. Plan a white elephant drawing. Bring a few extra gifts for those who didn’t bring one.
3. Do self-care. Work on looking and feeling good about yourself.
4. Practice meditation as it can help calm your mind.
5. Avoid negative self-talk. Tell yourself you can handle whatever situation arises. When stressed, try breathing through your nose and out your mouth to relax yourself.
6. Excuse yourself from upsetting situations. Minimize contact with difficult relatives and spend more time with relatives you enjoy.
7. Change the subject if potentially upsetting topics come up. Better yet, introduce the first topic. Set boundaries. Make a list of safer topics such as travel and sports.
8. Work with your children before family gatherings. Teach and reinforce manners that are important to your family. Guide older children to offer to help during gatherings.
9. Ask your children, after the event, what they enjoyed most about the family gatherings. Choose what to do again, and decide what to try next year.
Hopefully these suggestions will help you transform disastrous family gatherings into fun events, where memories can be made that will last a lifetime, and create stories that will be told for generations to come.
Share your holiday pictures on the Austin Family Facebook or Instagram pages with the hashtag #AustinFamilyMemories.
Betty Richardson, PhD, RN, CS, LPC, LMFT, is an Austin-based psychotherapist.
