Thanksgiving is a time where you and your family can spend an evening together with chatter, laughter, and good food. But sometimes, it can be a draining experience having to deal with them for a prolonged period of time—especially if your cousin is constantly asking you about your love life, or your aunt and uncle are asking you what you want to do after college. So, to keep all that to a minimum, here are a few tips to make Thanksgiving less of a stressful time when it comes to family.
1. Find ways to change the topic.
If you’re stuck in that aforementioned situation where you know you’re about to be questioned about every tiny detail about your existence, find a way to change the subject quickly, and get everyone talking about something else. Things like “What book is everyone reading right now?”, “What music is everyone listening to?” and especially, “Has everybody seen the new season of Stranger Things?” are more than acceptable topics to bring up to get yourself out of that situation.
2. Find your favorite family member.
You probably have a member of your family that you are extremely close to. It could be your sister, your cousin, etc. Point is, if you do, you can always hang out with them during the majority of the festivities. It would be easy to talk, have a laugh and just feel comfortable if you were with a close family member—especially if you consider them a friend. That way, not only would you be spending time with someone you get along well with, but you can also avoid the people in your family that you don’t really enjoy talking to as much. It’s a win/win situation.
3. Take a breather in an empty room
If you have a big family together during Thanksgiving, it would probably be exhausting to have to talk to everybody there. If you’re getting tired of it all, try and find a room with no one in it where you can take a couple minutes by yourself to collect your thoughts before you head back into it. It may not seem like much, but being able to get a moment to yourself during family gatherings can really help you get through the day.
At the end of the day, we love our family. But sometimes, we have to find ways of dealing with them when they get to be a little too much. So these tips are here to make them easier to handle. Or you could just spend the whole time eating in the corner. That works too.