Familiar advice - how to handle holiday visits with relatives - Abstract

Men's Fitness, Dec, 1998 by J.L. Sullivan

Do holiday visits with family members make you nuts? Here's how to deal with each and every one of them.

It's great to see your extended family when everyone gets together for the holidays, isn't it? For a while, anyway ... until they start to get on your nerves, and you begin to wonder why Christmas couldn't come along just once every other year. Well, you don't have to let your yuletide thoughts turn into homicidal fantasies. We've met your relatives, and we know just how to handle 'em. Follow our lead, and you will, too.

Great Aunt Louise: Since she doesn't sleep well anymore, she stays up listening to those radio talk shows that don't even start till midnight. Now, every time she sees you, she tries to warn you about how aliens in cahoots with the Chinese government are plotting to take over the International Monetary Fund, and you'd better clear out your bank account and put every dollar you have into gold bullion.

What to do: Communicate with her on her own level: Tell her you understand that the Year 2000 Bug is really a conspiracy between Microsoft and the Trilateral Commission, but cousin Andy still isn't convinced. That'll teach him for pulling the head off your G.I. Joe when you were six.

Uncle Daniel, "the successful one": If your dad's brother is rich from discovering a high-tech use for cotton swabs or directing Batman 5 or something, it throws off the dynamics of the entire family, and don't think everyone doesn't know it. Uncle Daniel gets the lion's share of the attention, the respect, even first crack at the turkey leg. But while it would be easy for him to offer you a great job you would really enjoy, somehow he hasn't yet.

What to do: Never ask him for a job. He'd make you beg for it, then give you some crappy gofer position along with a lecture about working your way up. The only way he'll ever respect you is if you become equally successful in a competing field - and you won't even have to brag to him about it, since your father will be doing it for you.

Cousin Bob - big Cousin Bob: He's a pretty nice guy for a Pontiac salesman, and he's friendly enough. It's just that you have a hard time forgetting how he beat you up at every family gathering when you were 10 and he was a hulking 13. Now his wife won't let him get into fights anymore, though he still tries to make you grimace whenever he shakes your hand.

What to do: A shoulder, biceps and forearm regimen mixed with 150 reps on a hand strengthener every day. You may never match his size, but you can have a stronger grip.

Little Sally, your niece twice removed: What a cute little girl ... if only she didn't have to prove it every 10 seconds. She gets plenty of praise at home, but somehow she needs more - a lot more. When she interrupts your conversation by tugging on your arm and saying, "Lookit what I can do!" for the 20th time, you come just short of telling her the truth about Santa.

What to do: Observe her folks' parenting skills as an example of how not to raise your own kids. In the meantime, give the little princess a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and tell her you heard the gift across the street put it together in less than an hour. It's mean, but hey, so is life. She has to find that out sooner or later.

Aunt Emily, your mother's adopted sister: Well, you think that's how she's related to you - apparently, there's some secret from years ago that no one wants to talk about. She's somewhere between 40 and 73, wears extremely bright clothing and spends her time traveling around the world on no perceptible income. She's very peppy and lots of fun for the first 20 minutes or so, when you suddenly begin to find her exhausting.

What to do: Treat her very well. She's just the sort of person who could turn out to have a million bucks tucked away in a sock somewhere.

Uncle Fred, who's getting better: He's a loser, but a fun loser. He lives in a cool city and will show you around his favorite lowlife dives when you go to visit him. Since his latest stint in rehab, he doesn't consume anything but eggnog at the family dinners, but he still manages to get tanked. At which point he starts drunkenly detailing the faults of all your other relatives, which would be a scary scene except that you think everything he's saying is pretty much true.

What to do: Accept him for the lovable souse he is, while assuring your parents that you don't ever intend to turn out like him, no matter what they think. But don't, under any circumstances, allow things to be set up so you're sharing a room with him. You'd be better off with your nephew who wets the bed.

Sexy Cousin Violet: Every time you see her, you remember all the not-so-innocent thoughts you used to have about her when the two of you were teenagers - mainly because you're still having them now. She's cute and curry, she wears exactly the kind of clothes her mother tells her not to, and sometimes you'd swear she was flirting with you. Guess what? She is.

What to do: Don't sweat it - she flirts with everybody. You can't help having natural male reactions, even if marrying her would be illegal n most states. Anyway, you'd attract more attention from everybody if you acted embarrassed around her than if you simply appreciate her for what she is and get on with your life.