Hey Miss Stang Thang,

Shoot me some advice for holiday family issues. For instance, what to do about the “one” relative in the family that no one likes but is forced to tolerate? I have one that “acts” like everything is just fine, then when I’m out of the picture, it’s back to normal, of complaining about everything under the sun that I did to piss them off.

Actually, I have 2 relatives like this. All nice to your face, then the minute they’re on their own turf and your not around, suddenly they had a problem with you? And it’s not limited to only holidays or special occasions, it’s all the time. To me they just seem like they have no courage and aren’t solid in their own “reasoning”?

Tess

Hey Tess,

I was wondering if I was going to get a question like this to kick off the holiday season.  First, this is the dynamic in so many homes during the holidays.  Why?  It’s simple, we all have people in our family that ACT that way, so in a sense, we deal with that phuckery all year long.

My mother used to tell me that “any dog that brings a bone will carry one”, so the way I have come to view people who behave that way as being “just the way they are”.  If you have pissed them off in the past, you will do so again the future.  No two people think alike and that’s how it goes, you just focus on being you, consider yourself lucky, I think that when one takes the time to gossip about me, they are using up their time and energy on me instead of addressing issues in their own life.

I have also come to believe that people who act this way have things going on in their life that they choose not to deal with and by talking about others, it keeps their mind occupied and manages to also keep them the center of attention, even if it’s for only a few minutes.

Long story short, you already know they are not going to act right but it’s important to your family to spend the time together and to enjoy each other for a few hours, and that’s all it is, a few hours.  Unless they are being disruptive, I’d really not pay them any mind and would interact more with people who are there for the purpose of hanging out with family and not trying to get ish started.  If you choose to come out of your face because someone is doing something that they do on a regular basis, you can bet your last dollar that the family will remember this Thanksgiving as the holiday that YOU showed your ass regardless of the reason, consequently, giving that difficult relative something to run their mouth about during future family get togethers.

Tess, life is too short to invest positive energy into negative people, share that love, warmth and positivity with those who appreciate it.  Have a happy holiday and let me know how it went.

Stang

If you have a question for me, you can e-mail it to AskStang@Stangzine.com