Ampersand Answers

The Question:

How do I handle the angry peeps at our holiday table? 

&mpersand Answers:  

This is one of those questions that makes me laugh because they come up year after year, and the human interest reporters scramble to find experts who proffer advice on handling difficult people. 

Remember, though, for &mpersanders, the issue is to divide or to unite, no more, no less, so I’m going to recommend something completely different. 

First, don’t wait till your holiday table is seated to remember that so-and-so always drinks too much, and turns to politics as their first default at provoking conflict. 

Instead, make a quiet moment for yourself BEFORE the holiday, and remember how it’s been in the past. Remember what the perp has done. Remember what you have done in response. Remember what others have done to handle it as well. 

Are any of them options you want to take now? If so, great, do that. But if not, what’s to do? Think about how you’d like it to be this year. 

It depends upon a lot of factors. Are you the host? Are you a guest? Generally, dealing with these sorts of issues falls upon a host, not a guest. But, if you are a guest, can you get in touch with the host beforehand, and make a plan together? Good cop, bad cop isn’t the worst strategy in these scenarios. If your host is the problem person, that’s a whole other thing. 

Having a plan, with an accomplice, is the best case here, if uniting is your goal. Someone puts an arm around your cantankerous guest, and steers the conversation, and the table elsewhere, stating explicitly, “We don’t need to go there today. It’s the holidays. Let’s just be together and enjoy one another.” 

If that doesn’t work, sometimes physical motion helps. Get up, get your guest up, and walk away from the table, speaking quietly to him or her. Explain that there’s enough upset in the world, and that we don’t have to bring it to our holiday table. Sometimes, that’s enough. 

For the ones who simply can’t be swayed from their belligerence, the best thing for your own peace of mind is to ignore the person, choose peace within, and do what you can to change the subject. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, you always have next year to try again. 

Try to remember. It’s one meal. One day of the year. Give yourself the gift of perspective. How important will an incident like this be next week? You have a whole year now to come up with a new strategy, and maybe enlist the help of the troublemaker. That one usually works.