Home For the Holidays | 10 Tips For Surviving Holiday Family Gatherings

Home for the holidays? Ugh. Already the pit is forming in your stomach. And instead of visions of sugarplums dancing in your head, there is the gnawing dread of a déjà vu—another emotionally-driven holiday with family and friends. What to do? Instead of avoiding it why not embrace the opportunity to try out some new behavior? I am suggesting ten ideas for taking care of yourself differently these next few weeks. Test-drive some of them out and see if you can manage yourself in a new and better way. "The less a person understands his own feelings, the more he will fall prey to them. The less a person understands the feelings, the responses and the behaviors of others, the more likely he will interact inappropriately with them and therefore fail to secure his proper place in the world." --Howard Gardner, Harvard Prof of Education and Cognition