Self Care for the Holidays with Your Conservative Relatives (Or Really Any Relatives. Holidays are Exhausting)
Published in
3 min readNov 22, 2017
- Find an ally! Maybe one of your cousins, or the so-called crazy aunt. Maybe the cat. You never know! Just make sure there’s someone (or some pet) you can go to when the conversation gets a little too painful.
- Make a list of quick facts (or use ours!) and use it as your lock screen on your phone — “Oh I was just checking the time, but did you know that repealing the individual mandate will raise premiums by 10% and kick 13 million people off their insurance??”
- We have a lot of Lessons in Politics and Deepish Dives for you, if you find yourself wading into the weeds over turkey, but if you’re digging into budget reconciliation you’ve probably gone too far. Save the details for a less fraught family affair.
- Listen. Seriously, you’re probably not going to convince anyone over one dinner, particularly a holiday dinner when emotions are already running high. But you are going to get a lot farther with your friends and family if you ask questions and then listen to the answers. At the very least you’ll be better prepared to argue next time around.
- Never underestimate the power of a well timed bite of stuffing.
- Where ever you left things at dinner, if you want to maintain the relationships, offer to help with the dishes. In fact, don’t offer. Everyone always says “No, no! Go sit down and eat some pie!” no matter how mad at you they are. Just start doing the dishes.
- Drink your wine.
- Okay, not everyone drinks. But find the thing that you like — the potatoes, the pie, the cheese, the weed (only if it’s legal in your state, of course!), the books, the football (although you never know with that one these days), or the kids table — and let yourself enjoy it.
- Don’t forget that you care about other things. You have craft projects, and movies, and books, and friends, and recent trips, and weird customers, and dumb bosses. I know it seems like you only exist to scroll twitter and call your Senators these days, but you are still a fully realized human. You can talk about that stuff too.
- Pick your battles. Decide whether you’re going out in a blaze of glory or if you’re going to focus on one thing you think you might be able to sway a family member on. There’s a lot going on in the world, and while we have to be able to multitask, it can be overwhelming to try to have dinnertime debates about everything.
- Charge your phone and take a spare battery. Do not get caught in a living room with one wall outlet that’s completely full of your sister’s and your cousin’s chargers
- Hide in the bathroom. At big meal like Thanksgiving, no one’s gonna say anything if you take an extra 10mins in the bathroom. Don’t forget your (fully charged) phone!
- Put on a movie, people don’t argue during movies, and sharing your love of something nostalgic will remind you that you like these people. And if you don’t like these people, it’s a good excuse not to talk to them.
- Bring a board game that everyone can play post-dinner. Take everyone’s mind of the political argument you had over turkey and instead argue over hoarding sheep in Catan or scoring a 82 point word in Scrabble. But maybe avoid Monopoly unless you want to get into the tax bill again.
- Take care of yourself. You know what you need, you know your family and friends. Trust yourself, enjoy your food, and be kind. You’re doing fine ❤
