People look forward to celebrating holidays from Thanksgiving through Chanukah, Kwanza and Christmas, to New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Why are this year’s celebrations different from all others?

Winter 2020-2021 – Covid, Holidays and Special Occasions

This newsletter is about how to decide what will work best for you, your family, and friends during the holidays. Who do you choose to celebrate with, and how do you decide? Personal health concerns and politics around Covid have significantly altered the way many of us choose to celebrate holidays and special occasions. And this may be especially troubling for older adults and their families.

This season, will you be together with family and friends? With or without social distancing? A virtual gathering? Home alone by yourself? How do you come to terms with all of this, and still celebrate?

The challenge for many people this Winter will be to find ways to turn the heat down. Even in normal years moral viewpoints and politics are almost surefire triggers for many families or friends. This year is different.

Whether it’s been the past 9 months of Covid, politics of the last four years, or long-standing family arguments and squabbles, how do you get past these issues so you can enjoy and celebrate what you have in common, rather than your differences? It isn’t magic. It takes work. And we can help.

In normal times most of us might just worry about food, gifts, or who shows up late. Yes, there’s the issues with one person who drinks too much. Someone who tells an inappropriate joke or asks an embarrassing question.

For many families this year there are additional concerns. What is normally a thankful, happy, and joyful time has been replaced with a contentious, and potentially dangerous season for people.

First let’s look at how you’re going to celebrate. Then we’ll choose how to respond and talk with others who feel differently than you do.

This unusual season everyone must decide for themselves what they consider, safe. Next, accept that everyone is entitled to their opinion when it comes to their own safety. Third, accept that when it comes to people’s health and safety, everyone gets to choose what’s best for themselves, and you may not agree.

How to hold your celebration. Follow local guidelines

1. You feel you need to be isolated from others. Do the best you can for yourself and your pod. Pods are small, self-contained networks of people who limit their non-distanced social interaction to one another—in other words, they’re the small group of people with whom you share air without using breath-control precautions such as a mask. Accept that different people have different thoughts and views on this. Stand up for yourself and don’t make others wrong for their views.
2. You still want to get together with family and friends. You know and understand local guidelines, whether or not you agree with them. Accept that different people have different thoughts and views on this. If someone feels differently, see if there are ways to include them. See how to include people whether in person, on Zoom or Facetime, or even just a phone call.
3. You don’t agree with, or believe what others may say, and you are going ahead with your normal holiday plans. That’s your choice, and be prepared to accept other people’s choices, too. Find other ways to include them or see if they have ideas that could also work. It doesn’t have to be someone is “right” and someone else is “wrong”.

You get invited to someone’s home

You can decide how you want to spend the holidays. If you get invited to someone else’s home, and it isn’t how you would like it to be to feel safe – find another way to take part. You can tell them how much you’ll miss being there, but for your own well-being you just can’t attend. It may not be the way they see things, and just as they’re doing what feels OK to them, you need to do the same. If your wishes don’t fit with someone else’s ideas, accept that, but still do what feels best for you and your loved ones.

How to respond to some people

Some people are just itching for a fight. They believe in their rightful, and righteous, thoughts and feelings. And, they let it be known. So, what can you do before or after this happens, and turn down the heat when it does? When you have people over, or visit with others, whether in person, on the phone, or using computer/phone screens you can:

1. Agree not to bring topics up, before you come together
2. Prepare your possible responses if uncomfortable or upsetting topics are brought up
3. Take responsibility for your thoughts and actions
4. Try to be kind
5. Use the resources at the end of the article

Tips:  Talking with family and friends who disagree  

Q1. When we get together with family, my (mom, dad, sister, brother, relative) always starts trouble with their (opinions, embarrassing stories, sibling arguments, grandparent’s advice) and ruins the party. We just want to have time together without arguments and hurt feelings. What can we do?

Q 2. We’d like to take part in our usual family traditions. With the pandemic this year, how do we celebrate, safely. What can we do?

A. For many families, grumpy or obstinate relatives just seem normal. With added stress this year getting together brings its own set of difficulties. The main considerations are 1) how will you deal with “difficult” people, and 2) how will you choose to hold your party?  How to celebrate in what you consider a physically and emotionally safe environment? One thing to do is begin planning early and talk things over with family and friends.

 Questions to ask yourself: 

• What do I need to do for myself, and my immediate household, to stay safe?
• How do I tell others, ask for their support, and not make them wrong?
• What are my options for celebrating this holiday season?

Helpful Tips:

Realize that sometimes, no matter what you try to do to turn down the heat, some people just don’t want to “play nice”. Take care of yourself and your immediate family, first.

Plan ahead and write down your thoughts, feelings and some sort of “script” to remind you. The purpose is to care about yourself and others. Make plans and talk with family and friends, sooner rather than later. Give thoughts and feelings time to settle in.

An advantage to using Family Conversations™ is that we’ve been working with older adults and families for a long time. Each of our mediators has personally, as well as professionally, gone through many similar situations as your family currently may be going through. We know how to ask the right questions and we don’t take sides. Using neutral parties to help you and your family makes sense. Contact us today for a free consultation. rich@familyconversations.com or call 952 884-1128.

Additional Resources:

Here are a variety of resources that can help you understand conflicts among family members or friends. Also, how to deal with holiday and special occasion get togethers so they feel more comfortable and rewarding.

4 Tips For A Feud-free Family Gathering  https://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/11/26/4-tips-for-feud-free-family-gatherings

• Tips for Dealing with Family Conflict During the Holidays  https://www.mediate.com/articles/SkinnerA1.cfm

• Safer Holiday Celebrations during COVID-19  https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/holidays.html

• Holiday Strategies for Dealing With Difficult Family Members https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/presence-mind/201811/holiday-strategies-dealing-difficult-family-members

• 7 Questions to Ask While Planning for Holidays During the Pandemic.  Here’s how you and your family can stay safer   https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2020/coronavirus-holiday-planner.html?cmp=SNO-ICM-FB-COVID-HLTH&socialid=4138749518

• Should Your Holiday Guests Take COVID-19 Tests This Year?  https://www.aarp.org/home-family/friends-family/info-2020/holiday-guests-coronavirus-test.html?cmp=SNO-ICM-FB&socialid=4032231482  

• Family and the Holidays!  A sober survival guide  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-high-functioning-alcoholic/201812/family-and-the-holidays  

• Friends can improve your health and well-being, especially during the holidays  https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/friends-can-improve-your-health-and-well-being-especially-during-the-holidays/2018/11/30/e31fb31a-ecd0-11e8-baac-2a674e91502b_story.html

• There are dozens of holidays between now and January. Here’s how to survive all that family time  https://qz.com/1135201/a-psychologist-explains-the-best-ways-to-cope-with-conflict-over-the-holidays/

• Innovative Holiday and Winter Gatherings in the Time of COVID-19 https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/innovative-holiday-and-winter-gatherings-in-the-time-of-covid-19.html

• Keep calm and carry on – but how? A psychologist offers 10 tips to manage the uncertainty and stress of election aftermath  https://theconversation.com/keep-calm-and-carry-on-but-how-a-psychologist-offers-10-tips-to-manage-the-uncertainty-and-stress-of-election-aftermath-149605?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Saturday%20newsletter%201172020&utm_content=Saturday%20newsletter%201172020+Version+B+CID_0a466df7a0db0e7a28bd4c7d9d0d502d&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=Keep%20calm%20and%20carry%20on%20%20but%20how%20A%20psychologist%20offers%2010%20tips%20to%20manage%20the%20uncertainty%20and%20stress%20of%20election%20aftermath

And if you still need more to read, to see how damaging all of this conflict can be…

‘You are no longer my mother’: How the election is dividing American families

By Tim Reid, Gabriella Borter, Michael Martina  Reuters November 2, 2020

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – When lifelong Democrat Mayra Gomez told her 21-year-old son five months ago that she was voting for Donald Trump in Tuesday’s presidential election, he cut her out of his life.

“He specifically told me, ‘You are no longer my mother, because you are voting for Trump’,” Gomez, 41, a personal care worker in Milwaukee, told Reuters. Their last conversation was so bitter that she is not sure they can reconcile, even if Trump loses his re-election bid.

“The damage is done. In people’s minds, Trump is a monster. It’s sad. There are people not talking to me anymore, and I’m not sure that will change,” said Gomez, who is a fan of Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants and handling of the economy.

Gomez is not alone in thinking the bitter splits within families and among friends over Trump’s tumultuous presidency will be difficult, if not impossible, to repair, even after he leaves office.

In interviews with 10 voters – five Trump supporters and five backing Democratic candidate Joe Biden – few could see the wrecked personal relationships caused by Trump’s tenure fully healing, and most believed them destroyed forever.

Throughout his nearly four-year norm-smashing presidency Trump has stirred strong emotions among both supporters and opponents. Many of his backers admire his moves to overhaul immigration, his appointment of conservative judges, his willingness to throw convention to the wind and his harsh rhetoric, which they call straight talk.

Democrats and other critics see the former real estate developer and reality show personality as a threat to American democracy, a serial liar and a racist who mismanaged the novel coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 230,000 people in the United States so far. Trump dismisses those characterizations as “fake news.”

Now, with Trump trailing Biden in opinion polls, people are beginning to ask whether the fractures caused by one of the most polarizing presidencies in U.S. history could be healed if Trump loses the election.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think national healing is as easy as changing the president,” said Jaime Saal, a psychotherapist at the Rochester Center for Behavioral Medicine in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

“It takes time and it takes effort, and it takes both parties – no pun intended – being willing to let go and move forward,” she said.

Saal said tensions in people’s personal relationships have spiked given the political, health and social dynamics facing the United States. Most often she sees clients who have political rifts with siblings, parents or in-laws, as opposed to spouses.

NEIGHBOR VS NEIGHBOR

Trump’s election in 2016 divided families, tore up friendships and turned neighbor against neighbor. Many have turned to Facebook and Twitter to deliver no-holds-barred posts bashing both Trump and his many critics, while the president’s own freewheeling tweets have also inflamed tensions.

A September report by the non-partisan Pew Research Center found that nearly 80% of Trump and Biden supporters said they had few or no friends who supported the other candidate.

A study by the Gallup polling organization in January found that Trump’s third year in office set a new record for party polarization. While 89% of Republicans approved of Trump’s performance in office in 2019, only 7% of Democrats thought he was doing a good job.

Gayle McCormick, 77, who separated from her husband William, 81, after he voted for Trump in 2016, said, “I think the legacy of Trump is going to take a long time to recover from.”

The two still spend time together, although she is now based in Vancouver, he in Alaska. Two of her grandchildren no longer speak to her because of her support for Democrat Hillary Clinton four years ago. She has also become estranged from other relatives and friends who are Trump supporters.

She is not sure those rifts with friends and family will ever mend, because each believes the other to have a totally alien value system.

Democratic voter Rosanna Guadagno, 49, said her brother disowned her after she refused to support Trump four years ago. Last year her mother suffered a stroke, but her brother – who lived in the same California city as her mother – did not let her know when their mother died six months later. She was told the news after three days in an email from her sister-in-law.

“I was excluded from everything that had to do with her death, and it was devastating,” said Guadagno, a social psychologist who works at Stanford University, California.

Whoever wins the election, Guadagno is pessimistic that she can reconcile with her brother, although she says she still loves him.

UNCERTAIN POST-TRUMP WORLD

Sarah Guth, 39, a Spanish interpreter from Denver, Colorado, said she has cut several Trump-supporting friends out of her life. She could not reconcile herself to their support for issues such as separating immigrant children from parents at the southern border, or for Trump himself after he was caught on tape bragging about groping women.

She also stopped talking to her Trump-voting father for several months after the 2016 election. The two now do speak but avoid politics.

Guth says some of her friends cannot accept her support for a candidate – Joe Biden – who is pro-choice on the question of abortion.

“We had such fundamental disagreements about such basic stuff. It showed both sides that we really don’t have anything in common. I don’t believe that will change in the post-Trump era.”

Fervent Trump supporter Dave Wallace, 65, a retired oil industry sales manager in West Chester, Pennsylvania, is more optimistic about feuding families in a post-Trump world.

Wallace says his support for Trump has caused tensions with his son and daughter-in-law.

“The hatred for Trump among Democrats, it’s just amazing to me,” Wallace said. “I think it’s just Trump, the way he makes people feel. I do think the angst will decrease when we’re back to a normal politician who doesn’t piss people off.”

Jay J. Van Bavel, a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University, said this “political sectarianism” has become not only tribal, but moral.

“Because Trump has been one of the most polarizing figures in American history around core values and issues, people are unwilling to compromise and that is not something you can make go away,” Van Bavel said.

Jacquelyn Hammond, 47, a bartender in Asheville, North Carolina, no longer speaks to her Trump-supporting mother Carol, and is also discouraging her son from speaking to her.

She said she would like to heal the relationship, but believes that will be difficult, even if Trump loses the election.

“Trump is like the catalyst of an earthquake that just divided two continents of thought. Once the Earth divides like that, there’s no going back. This is a marked time in our history where people had to jump from one side to the other. And depending on what side you choose, that is going to be the trajectory for the rest of your life,” she said.

Hammond said she first realized her relationship with her mother was in trouble shortly after the 2016 election when she defended Clinton while driving with her mother.

“She stopped the car and told me not to disrespect her politics. And if I don’t want to respect her politics, I can get out of the car.”

Bonnie Coughlin, 65, has voted mostly Republican all her life, except in 2016 when she backed a third party candidate. This time she is all in for Biden, even holding a small rally for him on the side of a highway near Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania.

Raised in a Republican, religiously conservative family in Missouri, she says her relationships with her sister, father and some cousins – all ardent Trump supporters – have soured.

Coughlin says she still loves them, but “I look at them differently. It’s because they have willingly embraced someone who is so heartless and just shows no empathy to anyone in any circumstances.”

She added: “And if Biden wins, I don’t think they will go quietly into the night and accept it.”

Could you use some help with a family situation?  With your parents or an older relative? With your adult children? Contact us today for a free consultation. rich@familyconversations.com or call 952 884-1128.