How to Enjoy the Holidays with the Extended Family

As the holiday season approaches, I'd like to offer a few tips on how to enjoy the added time with in-laws and other family members you see only once or twice a year. It can be very awkward and stressful and you have to take some precautions to be sure you enjoy the situations.

First of all, I hope your traveling group is the people you are most comfortable with - your spouse or kid. Don't travel alone. You will feel lonely and you need someone to go to for comfort at the end of the Thanksgiving dinner that was spent trying to make conversation with relative you have little in common with and don't even know how you're related. While I highly recommend you go with your spouse, significant other or kids, don't spend a lot of time interacting with them at the big family gathering or you won't find them so comforting afterward. The worst thing you can do is be upset with the people you are traveling with.

That brings me to the second point. Go with the flow. Chances are that you don't have anything else going on so you're not in a rush to get some place. And where to eat shouldn't be an issue because it'll be at grandma's house at whatever time she and her siblings feel like having the food ready. Don't sweat it. Don't complain about it. Just accept it.

If you're going to see family you aren't very familiar with, stay at a hotel. It can be awkward staying at a distant relative's house. I would recommend spending an afternoon/evening with the extended family, going to a hotel for the night, and meeting up again for brunch before leaving town.

Again, this only really applies for seeing family that you're not very close to. But sometimes one person is very close to the group and wants to spend several days with the people they're going to see and the spouse is not much interested. For this, it's good to have some other activity. The uncomfortable person can tolerate and may even enjoy 1 day at the in-laws but after that, he needs something else to do. If you have a kid, suggest that he take the kid out to see the city or go to a local basketball or hockey game, maybe go see a show. NFL games and college bowl games have done wonders for making these times more fun for everyone. There are always games going on during the holidays and it's something everyone, at least the guys, can talk about.

In my case, we try to make our Thanksgiving and Christmas trips be in conjunction with a bridge tournament. My dad and I both play, and the fall national bridge tournament always starts Thanksgiving day. Depending on where the nationals are in a given year, this gives us an excuse to skip all Thanksgiving festivities or stay for part of the day Thursday and then leave to go play bridge. There are several bridge tournaments right after Christmas, so again it is a good excuse to go see some family but then to leave before it gets very boring. I live in Atlanta and there is always a bridge tournament in or near Charleston, SC or Myrtle Beach starting Dec. 26 or 27. Most years, I'll go with my parents to see some family in Virginia or Kentucky or South Carolina for Christmas Day, spend the night in a hotel, have breakfast with them on the 26^th, and then head to the bridge tournament. They have a lot of tournament across the country starting right after Christmas for this very reason - people are tired of seeing the extended family and need an excuse to get away.