Just wondering what y'all do to survive the holidays with your sanity intact. Thanksgiving and Christmas usually turn into the Jerry Springer show with my family. I think it's starting early this year, since a giant Walmart opened up in town, and my mom is starting Christmas shopping early. It just gets insane.

My mom usually has a fight with my sister. Then she gets so bummed out about Christmas, that she makes me buy my own Christmas gifts and then wrap them myself. Then she sometimes forgets to pay me back, and I feel stupid asking her for the money. Then my sister buys presents for everyone else, but runs out of money for my gift. So I go broke buying gifts for her, my nephew, her live-in boyfriend, his two kids, and then they flake out and don't get me anything. It isn't that I'm materialistic or anything- I guess I just get my feelings hurt when they buy gifts for everyone else but me. It's usually because they spend money on booze or pot or something (hey, I told you this was Jerry Springer!) :lol:

Then everytime my family gets together, my dad has to get mean and nasty and hurt someone's feelings. Everyone ends up in a fight or leaves early and then that upset my mom. Sigh. We should have our own reality t.v. show.

Does anyone else have these crazy holidays? Please tell me I'm not the only one. :rolleyes: Does anyone have any good tips?

Does anyone else have these crazy holidays? Please tell me I'm not the only one. :rolleyes: Does anyone have any good tips?

You're NOT alone!! :grouphug:

I love celebrating, but the rest of my family is pretty conflicted about it all. They make plans at the very last minute, get hugely stressed and sleep deprived, and generally suck all the fun out of it. Ugh.

Why they haven't learned that hangovers don't improve this situation, I have no idea.

I love being able to plan weeks ahead of time, mostly so I don't get caught up in a frantic, last minute whirl. If I'm too tired, I just don't enjoy it. Plus, if I start buying myself little presents far enough in advance, by the time Christmas day comes around, I've forgotten whatever it is I've wrapped and stuffed in the toe of my stocking, so I actually get some surprises.

There's a lot of tension in my family generally, these days, and I absolutely dread the thought of attempting to share the holidays with my sister and her family. It's just no fun at all.

We stopped exchanging gifts with the extended family a few years ago. What a load off the shoulders! We just told them, "We don't care if all of you keep exchanging. We're just not going to do it anymore." The only one who was a PITA was my one sister. She kept complaining and dropping hints, and giving us gifts anyway (one was the Gift of the Magi - that was a not-so-subtle hint to us). So we only shop for the kids and each other. With online shopping it is so much easier too. No scrambling about at the mall, struggling to find a parking space! No crowds! Of course, there is usually one of two gifts that can't be found online, but for the most part, this works beautifully.

We also stopped feeling like we had to go over to the relatives' houses on the holidays. Sometimes we do, sometimes we just say that we want to stay home. We get flak here from my in-laws, although it's not too bad. But staying home on Christmas and TG is wonderful!

There is a book I read that was so helpful. It's called Unplug the Christmas Machine (http://fumcgraham.spreadtheword.com/store/STWViewItem/asp/ISBN/0688109616/I/I). It's about how to make Christmas more spiritual and meaningful. I highly recommend it.

Tea Lady

We used to do a gift exchange in our family but I got so stressed about it all. It makes no sense to me to stress about what kind of gift to get a certain person, than spend the money on the gift that I'm not sure they like or need. It just goes against what Christmas is all about! I love the holidays but don't enjoy them at all when I am feeling rushed, overwhelmed and broke. So now, as a family, we choose a charitable organization and take the money we would've spent on each other and donate it to a really needy cause. It takes away all of the stress and frustration and we feel good because we are helping out someone somewhere in the world who needs it a lot more than we do. We've sent books to schools in So America, a cow to an African village, helped build schools in Peru and purchased toys and clothes for children. The only gifts we buy for family now are for our children, parents, close Aunts and Uncles, (Grandparents have all died) and my husband and I for each other. It works real well for us.

For your mother, maybe just say "I'll be happy to accept your gift later, if you can't get it now." It sounds like she's trying to have it both ways - get the social credit of being seen having gifts for you at the family gathering, but avoid the time and effort and money of shopping. Rather than doing it for her, simply let it be her choice.

For your sister, maybe ask her. "The last few years I had a gift for you when you hadn't gotten one for me. I don't want to put you in an awkward situation, of receiving a gift without having one to give in return. Do you want to exchange gifts this year, or shall we skip, and maybe get together after the holidays for some relaxed fun, instead?"

For the others, don't get gifts to "exchange." Get gifts to give. Choose who your are getting gifts for, take your time and enjoy choosing the right gifts for those people, and enjoy giving the gifts. Let the pleasure of choosing for the people you care about be what you get out of it, not the return gift.

Thanks everybody! :grouphug: You have some good ideas. I have tried setting boundaries with my family in the past, but they're very difficult to set limits with. My mother puts pressure on me to make everybody happy, my sister pressures me to buy gifts for her boyfriend and stepkids to make them happy... and I always end up broke and binging on so much Christmas candy that I feel terrible.

I told my mom today that I didn't want to buy my own presents anymore. I am also buying gifts online this year so I won't have to kill myself in the stores.

I actually found a book at the used bookstore in town called "The woman's comfort book," and there's some good ideas in there about how to destressify and comfort yourself. There's a tip about making a "comfort box," putting things in a box that you find cheerful and comforting, and then when you need a zap, taking something out of the box. I got a couple of cool books about the new Narnia movie and the books (since I find that comforting) and I stuck that in my box to cheer myself up when I'm about to have a nervous breakdown. :lol:

I'm gonna need a BIG box! :wink:

Christmasses in our house are always interesting. The year I was born, the relatives still turned up at our house for christmas lunch, didn't want to go to the hospital to see the newborn baby (me) who was just a few hours old, and so my dad left them there while he went back to the hospital. He came back to find all the dirty dishes stacked by the sink and them all gone (good they were gone, bad he had to clean up :( ) Oh, did I mention my mum's mum had a big cancer opperation on the 24th and was really sick too? yup

Then, one year later, my first birthday, lunch was a at our house, big event with 'all the family'. Mum decided rather than buying all the food herself, and then people bringing food that wasn't needed out of politness (ha!) it would be good if everyone could organise to buy a certian part. Fortunatly my mum's nerves got the better of her, and she cooked enough food, because the person who brouthe the christmas meat brought like 3 pieces of cold luncheon sausage, and the pudding turned out to be a tiny pudding for one! Then Great nanna (dad's side) got her weelchair stuck in the mud, my mum's mum told ll the men to 'leave the old bag there', but my dad got her out. It was the last christmas that my two grndpa's would ever see, and everyone knew it too, and everyone was fighting, my mum's mum (grandma) hated my nanna (dad's mum) but nanna didn't know, and so my grandma asked my mum in a loud voice where she kept the aresnic and mu mum was trying to sush her, and my nanna was like 'what do you wnt arsenic for, don't you know its poisinous?' and then my uncles wfe stood up after the lunch, drained her glass of wine, thanked my mum for the lunch and turned to my uncle and said that she was leaving him, and walked out, oh, and nobody brought me presents and it was my BIRTHDAY :( My mum was too scared to leave the room because she was actually scared they would kill each other

this continues every year, when I was four my mother was in hospital with my brother who was very sick and they all still turned up, and me and my eight year old sister was left with them and they made her get them all tea and coffee, and we used the bed sheetsfor tablecloths because we didn't know better.

We had people dying on christmas, cakes catching on fire, relatives ignoring my birthday, etc etc untill it got too much, and we made christmas an imeadiate family time ONLY. We went to a restaruant and made it known we wouldn't be home on christmas day, people could drop round gifts the days before and they would go under the tree. Because it was spread out, and we didn't have relatives in the same place at the same time, things got almost normal. Then, we ultimatley moved out of the country, not for that reason, though it fixed any and all problems!

I know the thought of having 'family all gathered round' is nice, but in reality its not, as they start trying to murder each other and leave old ladies catching their death in the rain in their wheelchairs.

Is there any way you can have a more 'low key' holiday? just your imeadiate family, or go somewhere nice like to a restaurant or hotel for lunch?

ETA: the people who dies at/near christmas died of naturan causes and were not killed by another family member

Booze, booze, booze. There are a lot of issues in my family and family in-laws. Thank goodness for spirits!!! :hooched:

Fortunately, my in-laws are pretty sane. :ponder: Okay, maybe they're not ... but it's a fun sort of madness! One good idea we started using a few years ago to cut down on the shopping stress was to do a Secret Santa kind of thing. We all pick names, and that way we only have to shop for that one person (and our spouse). Much, much easier!

My side of the family now.... well, they really are nuts, and not in a good sort of way. :crazyq: The only way I was able to eliminate that stress was to stop spending time with them.

And yes, there's always the booze! Yay booze! :hooched:

Edited to add: I'm sorry this post is so long, but IMHO it is worth reading. Obviously I love Christmas.

(((Eowyn))), you can't "make" other people happy. Therapy has taught me that we are all responsible for our own happiness.

Holidays used to create a lot of tension in my family too, and they still have the potential to do so. The reason is that there was tension in the family in general, and holidays only brought it to the surface.

I have two uncles who don't get along and were once court-ordered not to be in the same place at the same time. My uncle who is a war vet has improved vastly in recent years, but his outbursts used to ruin family events. A couple of years ago, my sister and I were discussing the fact that the Bible never says specifically on what day Jesus was born, and that same uncle got upset because he thought we were saying we didn't believe in the birth of Christ. He kept quoting Luke chapter 2, which tells the Bethlehem story, as proof that Jesus was born. Of course He was born. That isn't what we were saying. But Dan didn't understand. He got very agitated, and then he abruptly left. On another Christmas, he smashed his gifts because he was having an episode. Then there was the year that my grandfather insisted on going to work at the family business on Christmas day. There was nothing at the shop that couldn't have waited, but he wanted to play the martyr. "Look how I sacrifice for my family; I even have to work on Christmas."

An ex-husband used to make Christmas even worse. To him it was all about the presents, and we were very poor because he was chronically jobless. He could be a real PITA. If he couldn't give as good as he got, which was usually the case, he became down on himself, and I just *could not* persuade him to look at anything in a positive light. I got a hint that this ex was so materialistic on the first Christmas after we started dating, when we spent the holiday with our separate families. In comparing experiences, I noticed that I kept talking about people and what everybody did or said, while he kept talking about presents and what everybody got or gave. Our first Christmas together, he'd just lost another job and was moping because Christmas would be "ruined." Thinking we could make warm memories anyway by doing things together, I tried to get him into the spirit of things by inviting him to help me trim the tree. He responded by grumbling, "All right. If you want me to trim the damn tree, I'll trim the damn tree." Then he started angrily flinging ornaments onto the tree. Totally ruined the whole mood.

To me Christmas is not about the presents. I've always been poor and unable to give much in the way of gifts, so I usually do homemade gifts and give in the priority of children first, then mother and grandmother, my own children who are adults now, and the others as I can afford it.

Things have settled down considerably. I cope partly by not bringing up sensitive issues or getting involved in family fights. That's what therapy is for.

One blessing we have is that my aunt, who is mentally retarded, simply *makes* Christmas. She has incorporated several traditions into it. One year she raffled off her artwork, a collage she had made by pasting fabric scraps on posterboard and framing it. Everyone drew numbers from a bowl. Barbara had another set of numbers in another bowl, and she drew out the winning number, which was my mother's. Mom was very excited to win the artwork. Barbara also started the grab bag tradition, in which she fills a garbage bag with practical, inexpensive things like rolls of paper towels, socks, toothpaste, what have you. Joyfully she brings the grab bag around to everyone, and somehow we all get exactly what we need. When she gives gifts (which are always very practical--school supplies for school age kids, yarn for knitters, etc.) she jumps up and down with glee while the receiver is opening the gift. "Open it, open it, open it!" It just makes her so happy to give. She saves up the money for her gifts by collecting aluminum cans throughout the year. Retarded she is, but I'll challenge anyone to budget money as well as Barbara does. I'm only sorry that not every family has an Earth Angel in it to help make special memories.

The Christmas I was 18, we had very little money, so instead of everyone giving gifts to everyone else, we simply drew names. I crocheted some Speedo-like undershorts for my zany uncle David, whose name I had drawn. They were Christmassy red and green, and he actually modeled them for everyone. We made a pact that all Christmas decorations, besides lights, had to be homemade. I made "candy canes" by using red ribbon and white pipe cleaners. Even guests didn't leave our house without making an ornament first, and the tree turned out gorgeous. The meal was potluck. We all drew a course--appetizer, side dish, main dish, dessert--from slips of paper out of a bowl, then shopped for and cooked our individual course. It was delicious. My mother recently recalled that Christmas and was sad because we'd been so poor that year. I told her I consider it my favorite Christmas ever. Apparently so does my uncle David, who still has those undershorts. They're well frazzled now, but last year he brought them out and draped them across a lamp.

Christmas can be wonderful even under less than ideal conditions.

Move!

I'm telling you, that was the absolute best thing we did last year, moving 300 miles 10 days before Christmas. :xmas: We enjoyed our Christmas so much because we were in our new house and no family was there to spoil it for us.

Seriously though, I think every family has it's moments during the holiday season. We've certainly had our share of drama. My personal trick to surviving is staying in the kitchen as much as possible. I volunteer for dishes, cooking, anything to keep from having to witness the soap opera going on in the living room. This way everyone wins. They get to be together and I get to stay out of it. They're not stressed because the cleaning and cooking is done and I'm not stressed because I'm cleaning and cooking. Unfortunately, there is no drinking at these get togethers. Dang!

I used to hate the holidays. My inlaws would show up every October and park their motorhome in my driveway until March or April, sometimes as late as June. We had no privacy and were expected to entertain them. Finally, after 7 years of this they built another house. Now we live in town and there's no place for them to park their house on wheels and I love the holidays again.

Ursula has wonderful advice (as usual :wink: ) and the only thing I can add is a smaller version of Amari's... minimize the family time. Do what you will enjoy - helping to set up decorations, cooking, whatever - but don't take on too much and walk away when you have to.
I know, easier said than done. True, but it is a very good skill to cultivate.

Dvips

I love my family most when they're in Alberta and I'm in Quebec. For non-Canucks, that's a fairly significant distance, especially if one travels mainly by Greyhound!

Unfortunately, when I went back last Christmas, the distance had made everything worse! Everyone wanted to be around me, all the time. In 18 days, I'd be leaving again. Oh woe :brickwall

By the end of the holidays, I couldn't help wondering where all my rum had gone.... It'd been a big bottle.... Did I really drink it all? But I survived!

This year, I'll be there for almost four weeks. The alcohol budget may have to be higher. ;)

What wonderful, wonderful advice there is on this thread. I'm saving it for myself.

The only things I rely on that haven't yet been mentioned are:

1. Allowing myself to take time-outs: unannounced little breaks that give me a little breathing space. Sometimes it's just going to the restroom or a spare bedroom (especially the one where all the coats are piled!) and resting my head in my hands, giving a gentle but strong scalp massage. Sometimes it's just slipping out a side door to take a deep breath of fresh air and conciously relax the muscles in my face.

2. I also carry a stick of cocoa butter in my purse and give myself a deep hand massage (or foot massage, if everyone's being very casual and I'm barefoot). Being in charge of giving gentle tending to my stress points seems to give me both a physical and psychological boost.

3. I never go anywhere without an out. My own car (or a trusted friend as driver), cab fare, bus schedule, even just a planned walk route to the nearest coffeeshop. I always want to be able to say, "Oh, gee whiz! I have some things I forgot that I need to take care of. Gotta go!" ("some things" = my health and sanity) No excuses or explanations, by the way. A calm smile and cheerful restatement of the basics is the best course. And sometimes just knowing I could physically leave if I really had to was as good as actually getting the heck out of there.

4. When I'm absolutely stuck and cannot get away (AH! AH! AHHH!), I play the mental trick of pretending that I'm an anthropologist in charge of studying some uncivilized tribe. "My, how bizarrely they behave in a group environment," I think. "This will make an excellent paper. Tenure for sure!" Of course, as a scientist, it is my role to observe, and I must interact as little as possible with the study subjects. *grin

All this gets all shot to heck if you have kids and have to stay involved for their sakes. I don't know what I'd do then, as I have no kids, but I bet we have some very creative and intelligent parents here who have their own tricks.

(And, if I am not driving, I find a liberal application of scotch serves me well. But then, that's already been covered.)

-------------------------------------------------------

edited to add: I see a pattern in this, for me, that I never noticed before. My standard tricks (time-outs, self-massage, leaving the scene, mental distancing) all serve to break me out of the ritual patterns of action-reaction. It's so hard to deviate from one's well-learned patterns of family interaction. However, if you can find a way to get through the hard times without making anything worse (just get through -- survive as time passes, keeping your sanity intact), then you're home free. Usually.

(And may I add that I'd simply adore getting together with y'all and gabbing away, doing S&D's on one another like happy grooming monkeys, and passing around the Swap Box instead? :) )

(And may I add that I'd simply adore getting together with y'all and gabbing away, doing S&D's on one another like happy grooming monkeys, and passing around the Swap Box instead? :) )

and a group hair measure :) we had a group hair measure at my SCA meeting lat week, it stemed from us girls talking about how fast our hair grows and I complained that my hair grew the standard half an inch a month, and then I added "And I KNOW cos I measured it" and next thing you know we were measuring, from my friends 54 inches, and some guys 1cm hair, but we measured his head, lol. that reminds me to change my current length to 27 inches in my profile :D

but it was very fun, and I was supprised to learn that one of the ladies had hair ten inches longer than mine... I bnever thought it was that much longer

How to survive the holidays? Keep the drinks coming. It really helps me relax and have a good time, instead of wanting to strangle them all. :grin:

ETA: the people who dies at/near christmas died of naturan causes and were not killed by another family member


This last bit sums up your post perfectly. :bigeyes: The fact that you needed that little disclaimer says mountains.

I'm sorry you and the others have had such bad experiences. I do think it's best just to keep the holidays to the immediate family or just those living in the house hold. Too much pressure!

How to survive the holidays? Keep the drinks coming. It really helps me relax and have a good time, instead of wanting to strangle them all. :grin:

Bwhahahahaha! Good plan! :hooched:

Do you like Flylady?
http://flylady.net/
Scroll down to the section "Cruising through the holidays"

Mphft. (laughing)
This thread is great!
My mom's side of the family = no problems
Dad's side = WOW. Everyone fend for themself!
DBF's side = Take a deep breath... not quite as bad as Dad's side!
I try to stay in the background and not get involved in any arguing, drinking, or bashing. I like peace... especially during the holidays.

Loved the comments about anthropology and disclaimers! Hee.
:jestor:

I like the suggestion about the box also. Must try it this year...
Only since I am on the move it will have to be a bag o' comfort items rather than a box.

Diversionary tactics also seem like a good idea.

My daughter and I started celebrating other winter holidays--Yule and Hannukah-and moved across the country. We're being pressured to fly down for the holidays, but no one will even consider coming to visit us!!

It's hopeless. I make my own way.