Holiday Survival Tips

One of my friends admitted to me that she wasn’t looking forward to the holidays, specifically, because of personality conflicts among extended family members.

Well, you and everybody else!

Yes. It’s that time again when we gather with relatives, just as we have gathered for millennium, and complain behind backs about weird odors, artificial body parts, strange habits, and obnoxious behavior- kind of a real life version of the holiday classic “Christmas Vacation”. (I can’t help it, I laugh so hard I think I’m gonna pee every time I see the scene where the squirrel comes flying out of the Christmas tree and attaches to Chevy Chase’s back- thus, the movie is a holiday classic!)

Why, oh why, do we continue to reenact this strange and painful behavior? It’s kind of like the lemmings rushing off the cliff face to death in the sea because that’s the way they have always done it! For more on the lemmings-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWuiGWkd7mM

This informative look at darling rodents with brains approximately the size of peas will entertain, inform and gasp- reflect! If you have a soft spot for furry little creatures, I strongly caution you- the film captures the result of this mindless lemming behavior, with footage of numerous little wet, lifeless lemming bodies adrift in the ocean. Not pretty. Not pretty at all.

I highly advise you spend the holiday doing what ever it is single people who live far away from family do- that is, what ever they please.

However, if you are one of those people who will be excommunicated from the family if you don’t cheerfully participate in the holiday, then read on, this is for you.

Yes. It’s time to gather round the table with a group of people that you wish you didn’t know, but you are chained to by genetics or marriage. Time to put on a big smile and eat the green bean casserole, the burned biscuits and the woefully undercooked turkey ( But it’s been in the oven for hours! It can’t be raw!), followed by a big slice of Aunt Abby’s devil-may-care-dieter’s-delight-vanilla-green tea-fondue-crisp-peanut butter-grape pie.

So, I decided to do you a big favor and just pass along a few tips for a peaceful holiday with the family.

1. No matter how bad it gets, do not drink copious amounts of alcohol – it’s not going to make things better, and God knows when you accidentally vomit on Uncle Chester the whole family is going to get a lot louder. Not only that, But if you are too drunk to drive they are gonna arm wrestle the keys away from you, make you sleep on the couch, and then you are going to have to face them all again in the morning. So be smart. Stay close to sober.
2. Smile and nod when spoken to, If you have nothing to say, keep a plate of appetizers in your lap and each time someone speaks to you expecting a response, shove something like peanut butter anchovy spread on rye cracker in your mouth, gesture wildly with your hand that your mouth is full and smile some more.
3. Cruse antique shops until you see one of those long ear horns that you always see in movies, purchase it, and take it to the holiday dinner with you. Explain to all in a loud voice that- you’ve developed a case of tinnitus, stumping your normally brilliant doctors. No cure is evident and you can’t hear a blasted thing, however they can yell into “this here brass horn” to speak with you. When ever any one does yell into the horn, politely yell back as if you can’t tell how loud you are talking. Pretty soon everyone will just smile and nod at you and pretty much leave you alone. This is a fantastic way to avoid hearing all the gory intimate details of your cousin’s private life, unless of course your cousin is determined to talk about her STD even if she has to yell.
4. Approach the eating as if you are on a important diet- you might want to amaze everyone with the fact that you are a straight A student in your on-line astronaut training program ( yes, aunt Jenny, it’s fully certified and recognized), and in the near future you will have to have a pre-flight physical assessment. The requirement is 10 pounds under what you weigh, ( what ever your weight may be) and you are determined to be on the first manned flight to Uranus. Take only one small spoon of each dish, thus avoiding hurting the cooks feelings with out having to suffer through actually eating their food. You can play it up by bemoaning the fact that you just can’t eat more of their wonderful cooking, you will just have to pine over those candied sweet potatoes with juju beans and marshmallow fennel sauce until next year.
5. When confronted with the inevitable inquires into the state of your job, quickly glance to the left and right with narrowed eyes, grab your inquisitor by the shoulder and yank them close, lower you voice and say ”Honestly Auntie Em, I can’t talk about it. We just got a big contract with Homeland security, but it’s very high security clearance and I just can not disclose anything”. Then wink, nod yes, and change the subject. Now don’t get all crazy with this one, if you want to say CIA or FBI instead, make sure it’s plausible. If you are a shoe sales person or a waste removal technician, Homeland security is a better bet, they have people everywhere. If you are with a high tech firm, or travel a lot for work, than yes, CIA or FBI might fly.
6. When you are asked the inevitable questions about your significant other (or your lack there of) just refer to # 5 and add, I met someone really nice through our contract with homeland security, but honestly, they are very high security clearance, I just can not talk about them at all. Then smile, wink, nod yes and change the subject.
7. When asked the inevitable question about when you are going to settle down and have kids, refer to #5, and add- “the world is so unstable right now, ( if you can muster up a teary far away look in your eyes, it’s helpful at this point), so threatening, I just don’t think it’s the right time. Besides, my therapist says I’m to narcissistic to raise children and I pay him enough, he ought to know. I am working through this in therapy and I just have to wait until all my issues are resolved. It hurts to talk about this you know, I do so love children.”
8. Now, to avoid after dinner conversation and stupid games, you can start the evening off by offering to mix those after dinner drinks. Add more than the normal allotment of alcohol, and if you are lucky the combination of extra booze and all that food will put everyone over 40 into a stupor in no time. Then you can hang out and basically spend the evening alone.
9. If you just can’t stand the thought of a day with the relatives, you can arrive with a dish that lacks one ingredient. Proclaim “Oh God, I forgot to pick up the garnish for this casserole- let me just run down to the quick mart and get some pistachio brittle to go on top of it, I will be right back.” ( The key to this is, of course, not naming a garnish that could possibly already be in the house. Keep it exotic or you are trapped! Also, you must make it a point to say – “oh, by the way, Mom, did you try to call me earlier? My cell phone battery is dead and I can’t find my charger- I will get a new one next week”.) Leave the house and don’t look back. Go to the local subway shop, enjoy a turkey sub. Head over to your favorite hang out and have a drink, watch the game or go shopping, what ever- see, the day is yours now. Don’t return to the house until you are sure that the dinner is over, drinks are done, and all the relatives are gone. Then, stumble in with a dazed and confused look on your face. Ask what day it is, what time it is and “ how long was I gone?.” Then explain you were driving up the road, saw a large object hovering over the intersection and just as you got to it a bright light seemed to explode from under it and you don’t remember anything else until you just walked in the door.

OK folks, that is all the holiday survival tips I have time for today, I have to get busy and make the pumpkin pie, it’s my turn this year.

Gaden Shartse World Tour - part one

I just spent several hours getting warmed up to blog. I did this by exercising my talent for stringing words together by creating several entertaining articles for a web site that hires ghost writers, talent unseen, untested, and unknown, to write for them. Today I captivated my audience with tales of my adventures surfing the big waves on the North Shore. For those of you who spend way to much time in front of a computer or otherwise encapsulated in a sedentary indoors life style, the North Shore is the north shore, literally, of Oahu, Hawaii.

Yes, this is where the big waves break, and the little surfers get broken. Of course I used my considerable experience with the art of surfing to compile a pile of highly suspect, but passable to the un-initiated, yarns of surf-dome adventure under the moniker Big Bill “Flipflop” Kakaman-o-tikibarkanni.

Now that my blogging butt is well settled into the chair, I’ve had my ration of 14 cups of coffee and my finger muscles are warmed up and ready for some serious typing, I thought I would write a little about my latest adventures in international cooperation and understanding.

As you know, I recently had the pleasure of spending a little time with “my Monks”, the Monks of Gaden Shartse Monastery. These Monks travel the world as ambassadors of the dharma, bringing Buddhist teachings to everyone they come in contact with. Many of the people involved with the success of the Monks tour are dyed in the wool Buddhist practitioners. Others, like myself are on the fringe, still grasping for the light of understanding from any bulb they come in contact with. It is really amazing to see these dharma spreaders in action, and even more amazing to have the opportunity to spend time with them along the path they travel.

I think the thing that stands out most in my mind is how everyone they meet is all over them like ducks on a June bug. I mean, people just want to be near them, to talk with them, to have a photo with them, to exchange smiles with them. Even the most introverted individual seems to bloom in their presence. Every where we went, and I do mean we, as I followed them around pretty much full time for nine days, they had lines of people waiting to speak with them after each event.

Everyone had questions, from “Do you wear sandals even in the winter? And “does your shaved head get cold a lot?” to “Can you, in three minutes or less, explain the nature of existence and the teachings of the Buddha?” No matter what the questions, the Monks always had a thoughtful answer. Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that they all are extremely intelligent and have many years of schooling. We actually had the honor of a couple valedictorians and a summa cum laude ( what is that? Latin for “guy who gets all A’s”? ) on the tour. Each Monk was also a master of a particular specialty, like chant master and ritual master. If the Monks were a poker hand we would have been in the big money. The monastery honors us by sending only it’s brightest scholars so that we will get the best answers to our probing questions, like – what can we do to handle our anger or disappointments? - a question that I noticed was asked over and over.

I guess us westerners have more than our fill of anger and disappointment. I have to wonder though, is it because of the way we look at life? I wonder, have we become spoiled by our capitalistic life styles? Have we been nurtured beyond a healthy understanding that sometimes bad things do happen? Are we all Polly Annas? Do we become angry and disappointed because we expect everything to be prefect for us in our own perfect time?

Here’s an example- while I was going through my 327 page check list of things to have for the Monks stay, I noticed I didn’t have enough bottled water. I panicked! Madre de Dios! How could I possibly ask them to drink our dirty American fluorinated, chlorinated tap water? Then it struck me, as if a bolt of lightening in the darkness tapped right on the top of my head- what am I, crazy? My tap water is cleaner than most of the world’s water supply, and, although I pass when ever possible on ingesting chlorine, we probably were not going to die of dysentery or typhoid if I had to make the Starbucks with some tap water.

See what I mean? It’s really our perception of the situation that gives it meaning, not the situation itself. Our reaction to any situation depends entirely on our perception of what is happening. If we could analyze our perception of a situation for possible misunderstanding before we panic and get angry or disappointed, maybe we could save ourselves from a lot of anger and disappointment.

Anyway, that’s what I got from listening to the Monks answer that question over and over and over… now of course, the question is how do we manage to watch our thoughts, and analyze them for misunderstanding, before we react? Well, I guess that is the tricky part.

More on this topic soon…

For more on the Gaden Shartse Tour, check their web site, the link is on the right hand menu.


PS - Summa Cum Laude means- highest with honor or praise.