How to Keep Your Peace with Frustrating Family Members During the Holidays
Holidays and fireworks are often found hand-in-hand, although sometimes those fireworks are more figurative than literal. Between the financial and social stresses, most of us are not operating at our best by the time the parties and vacations come around. Add to that the necessity of planning and spending time with frustrating family members over the holidays. Embrace tranquility and foster strong connections by prioritizing these strategies for peace over the holidays—it’s no wonder that tempers sometimes flare up and explode, creating a harmonious and memorable season for all.
Many clients I’ve worked with have challenging relationships with their family members—navigating those dynamics over the holidays can be tricky. In today’s post, we’ll explore helpful tips and strategies to keep the peace when your family members start to drive you mad.
1. Realistic Goals
First and foremost, remind yourself of your purpose in getting through the holidays. You shouldn’t aim to heal old wounds or redress ancient grudges. Instead, the bar is much lower. To keep the peace, we need to find healthy outlets for our frustrations, give ourselves (and others!) time and space, and avoid sticky topics or points of contention.
Some ways you can maintain the peace:
- Excuse yourself when you feel conflict brewing.
- Tell them you’d prefer to enjoy their company, not spend the holiday arguing with them.
- Focus on talking or asking questions about interests and hobbies.
You aren’t going to change many people’s deeply held political or religious beliefs at the dinner table, nor will you solve any big problems by listening to unwanted advice about your personal life.
2. Healthy Boundaries
It’s worth it to sit down before the holidays and think about which relationships are particularly frustrating. What is it about those relationships that frustrate you? Are there sensitive topics that you’d prefer to avoid?
When traveling, there’s often a lot of pressure to stay with family members or to put them up as guests. If this is a stress point for you, you can get ahead of that by letting people know that you’ve made other plans. In addition, it may be helpful to call ahead and let people know there are certain topics you’d prefer to avoid—political, financial, or personal.
Whether they respect your wishes or not, you can refuse to engage and remind them you aren’t interested in discussing those matters.
3. Know Your Limits
As with everything in life, it’s important to know your limits. We can only take so much before frustrations explode or button-pushing sets us off. Take time to check in with your frustration levels over the day, plan to communicate that to your partner or other family members, and be ready to make a graceful exit before you explode.
4. Avoid Dangerous Habits
Often, during the holidays, there’s a temptation to self-medicate with unhealthy habits. Be careful about falling back on alcohol or other unhealthy coping.
If you notice yourself getting frustrated and using unhealthy coping habits, it may signal it’s time to enact any plans you have to limit contact and conversation.
5. Practice Acceptance
One way to set realistic expectations for the holidays is to practice acceptance. Change is something that comes slowly. Building or repairing a relationship takes time and sustained effort. For the sake of the holidays, do your best to accept them, flaws and all. Only when we recognize and explore the difficulties in our relationships can we learn to manage them.
Schedule an Appointment
Reach out to schedule a free consultation if you’re struggling with stress over how to handle the holidays. As therapists, we’ve helped countless clients prepare mentally for the battles to come—and create plans to maintain peace even when it feels like a lost cause.
