As the bells toll and the fireworks are popping off, some people might dread that which is to come in a few hours. Namely, the Relative Fight Fest.That occasion when everyone gathers together, tensions mount and you begin to understand within seconds why it is that you normally don’t hang out, unless a “family occasion” or a holiday happens to bring you all together.

Here is a very quick and thoroughly improvised guideline yours truly came up with on the fly on trying to navigate that minefield of family tensions amidst all the good cheer.   

1. Know yourself & your values

What do you stand for? What matters to you in the world, and what can you let go?  Hearing bigots go on and on about Faith and the authoritarian in charge (who, to them is (nothing short of) a Savior) is taxing but if you think about it, what they’re really after is a fight. This is to assert superiority, and it leaves no room for debate. 

To quote Flavor Flav’ from his show Flavor of Love, “does she pay your rent or your food? No, then let it go.”

While Flavor Flav’ may or may not be a paragon of virtue (I found the show entertaining and can safely assert that along with many others, it got me through my Master’s thesis while I was writing it), quoting someone you know they would / will hate, is already half the fun. You know where you stand on certain issues, so go out and have at it. Exaggerate, embellish, do whatever you need to have fun with the situation, because at the end of the day, this is only a few hours of your life.     

2. Know your allies

Which brings us to Step 2. Know that you are not alone. No matter how alone you feel or how impossible the concept of this might seem, chances are very high that there is at least one other person who not only thinks and feels like you but is also looking for someone to share this sentiment with (and possibly pool forces against the worst offenders). 

Your new ally will come in especially handy when the attack is particularly stealthy. That energy vampire who acts like the Second Coming of Mother Teresa while they are sucking the life out of you as they chip away at your soul? Much easier to recognize and combat when you’re banding together. As my personal ally reminded me at the last Relative Fight Fest, “we are not enemies. We are united against The Problem. And The Problem is out there.”

Remember to periodically check in with each other and look for hidden cues, as you are both protecting each other. This makes it very easy to get drained. Make a plan to do something fun, even if it’s only a quick snark fest when you sneak off for some privacy. And always have an alternative plan in case your Problem scraps the very thing you were looking forward to all this time.     

3. Know your enemies

Know who they are and what ammunition they will bring. Much easier to preempt an attack (and hey, who knows, maybe even turn it against them). Be funny, be outrageous. I once shut my uncle up at a dinner with no allies or friends by countering his statement that some people like porn with, “some people like snuff movies. What’s your point?”

It helped that I was a grown up and knew where I stood in terms of values, and what I would and would not accept when it came to people’s ways of making money and their ethics. It also helped that I had good friends with whom I could banter and was living in the cradle of banter at that time. And while I would never trust him enough to not screw me over (again), being able to give as good as I got and then some at least made me feel less helpless with someone I had always fought for his racist remarks.  

But also know what drives them. Oftentimes that factor will be loneliness-driven fear and understanding that can go a long way in how you interact with them. Bonus points for nailing down the fear and working on it from the inside.

Only do this if you can stomach it though. Your own mental health and safety always comes first. No ifs, no buts, no coconuts. 

4. Keep your sense of humor & snark

I learned a lot in the Land That Invented Snark, but I had also learned earlier, when I fell in with a group of people who changed my life. Not only did they make my last three years in Germany bearable, but they also laid the groundwork for when I moved again after my first university degree.  

Humor and snark made meetings with my uncle downright fun and enabled me to deal with the others by writing snark about them in my head. Later of course they made great Story Weasel material, because who doesn’t like to laugh at the relatives being portrayed, especially when you know you have almost the same ones. 

If more people accepted that, hatred of that dreaded Other would have a much harder time because how can you hate someone who truly gets what you are going through? Which is absolutely why people have a vested interest in painting those they have deemed the Enemy as monsters.     

5. Remember that this is not forever

It’s a dinner and maybe, if you’re truly unlucky, a bit of a longer stay. But it’s not the rest of your life, though it may very well seem like it. 

Torturous and arduous as this is, at the end of the holiday / function / event you get to go home and be your awesome self while they are and – from the looks of it – forever will be stuck in their ways. 24/7/365. Day in, day out. Until they die. 

You hit the jackpot, even if having empathy and compassion in buckets can seem more curse than pleasure too many times.     

6. Rejoice in who you are

You are awesome! No really, you are. You care about people, you won’t sell your soul to the devil (no matter the disguise he thinks up) and you accept others as humans. Look at how you have broadened your horizons from the moment you understood what different spaces hold in terms of knowledge, experience and enrichment. 

You’re a sentient being who can think for themselves and you’re not threatened by someone who looks different or shows any signs of being anything else but a clone of you, your partner, children, various neighbors and everyone in you neighborhood driving to work at the same time.

You are open and kind and ready to embrace the world. In one week (or whenever this is over, you will embrace life and work through your fears while they double down and seek solace in the very things that will feed their fears even more.

You totally got this little blip in the trajectory of your life!     

Happy holidays, everyone! Wherever you are or what you choose to (not) celebrate.