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The most blunder-ful time of the year

Home for the holidays. Four words that inspire joy, angst and everything in between. If Norman Rockwell isn't coming to dinner, here's help.

By CATHERINE E. SHOICHET
Published December 12, 2006

Can relatives rock around the Christmas tree together without getting too shaken up? We gave a few experts some typical scenarios and asked them their advice.

The situation

Your mother-in-law can't forget that teensy faux pas you made 20 years ago. Your uncle is prone to passing out at the table after a few too many drinks. Your brother is still arguing about the 2000 election results. Your 87-year-old mother's memory is stuck in the 1950s. But as always, everyone's gathering for the holidays.

How can you deal with them all? How much do you have to tolerate?

Fran Mabee, a psychologist with the Pinellas County schools:

Ask your doctor for Xanax. I'm just kidding.

I always think an ounce of prevention is good. If there's someone who drinks a lot, you might just say we're going to have an alcohol-free Christmas. As far as the 87-year-old repeating things, I think you just have to accept where people are in life. We need to have compassion for people.

Sometimes it's a good idea to include people in the gathering who are sanity savers. I have a girlfriend who invites me to family gatherings. She calls me her Valium lick. Sometimes she'll just come in the kitchen and give me the wild-eyed look. And we laugh. Laughter is a great tension release.

Plan the event so you can control it as best you can. If there are bickering people, that's when you say, "This is Christmastime. We need to remember Christmas is about love and peace, and I really don't want arguing in my house."

You need to take care of yourself in whatever way you can. Put a time limit on things. Start the Christmas dinner at 4 and make everybody leave by 7. People just have to do the best they can and not put too many expectations on things.

Patricia Alexander, a licensed mental health counselor with Wood & Associates in Tampa and St. Petersburg:

People spend hours traveling all over to places they don't want to go to be with people they may not even want to be with because they want to avoid conflict, or they're trying to appease somebody.

The positive spin on all of this is to take a look at what the holiday really means to you and have the courage to plan it accordingly.

A lot of times people try to become mediators or they try to use logic to defuse situations. If somebody is angry or intoxicated, well, it's not going to work. You stay for a period of time, and then you say, "Thank you very much," and you leave. You do not have to expose yourself to negative experiences.

Barbara Rhode, a licensed marriage and family therapist in St. Petersburg:

If somebody's behavior really becomes inappropriate, take a break. Leave. Go on a walk. Go visit another friend. People make a lot of excuses during the holidays because they don't want to rock the boat.

Certainly you don't have to go too far. Christmas Eve is not the time to tell Aunt Susie she's been an alcoholic for 28 years and needs to get into rehab. But Aunt Susie doesn't get a free ticket to be obnoxious just because it's Christmas.

We've got some cookie cutter images of how it should be, and maybe sometimes we should just embrace how it is.

My husband tells the story of being a child and having an uncle who had Alzheimer's who fell asleep (at Christmas dinner) and his head was resting in the mashed potatoes.

In some ways, that solidifies the holiday memories. (My husband) still talks about it in his 50s.

The situation

Your new husband has two children from his previous marriage, and so do you. All four kids are expecting Christmas to be like it has always been. How can you keep everyone happy?

Barbara Rhode:

Incorporating all the different traditions can be really challenging to a blended family. I don't know if there are any rules for it other than lots of communication. Ask everyone: What are you hoping for? What are you afraid might not happen? What's your biggest wish? I would try to work in anything that's feasible for the kids' sakes as long as it's good for the whole family.

Have a powwow. Everybody gets to maybe have one thing that the family will do to honor their tradition or their hope. Someone wants to watch that special movie. Somebody else wants to go shopping at International Plaza. Maybe the only rule should be that you don't critique or judge what each person gets to choose, as long as it doesn't cause any harm or damage. I think that sends a great message to blended families.

Rick Weinberg, a licensed psychologist and associate professor at the University of South Florida's Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute:

First, you have the logistics to deal with. Should you go to the new husband's house or the old ex-wife's house? You've got all these competing forces that then get magnified. It becomes logistically more difficult, without even considering the unresolved emotional difficulties that still could be carrying over from the earlier marriage.

What you need is good communication, good planning and a lot of patience. You need a lot of consideration for everybody's point of view and everybody's circumstances. You need flexibility, compromise, creativity and perhaps having several days upon which you celebrate Christmas.

The situation

You're a college freshman home for the holidays. You're used to staying out until 3 a.m. But when you return home, your parents say you have a midnight curfew and that you need to spend the next three days helping out around the house. What should you do?

Fran Mabee:

Try to sit down and talk to your parents about how things have changed. Assert yourself a little bit and try to strike a compromise of some sort. I think the parents also have a leg to stand on. But it's not fair to throw her back into the same set of rules that she had when she was younger. There should be more consideration for her needs at this point in her life. Maybe a phone checkpoint instead of being home at midnight.

The student is also going to have to bend to the fact that she's back under her parents' roof. There's going to have to be some communication and some compromise.

Barbara Rhode:

We're trying to do that with my daughter this year. We're going to sit down and we're going to discuss rules.

Use it as an opportunity to teach compromise. Kids need to compromise. And parents aren't going to have it just the way it was. Parents can take a deep breath and remember that this, too, will pass. Someday they won't be coming home for the holidays. They'll just pay a visit.

Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at cshoichet@sptimes.com or (352) 860-7309.

[Last modified December 11, 2006, 17:54:16]