This'll Crack the Christmas Blues Out of You and Up

Crushing Christmas: How to Win Every Argument

By Kelly Williams Brown

December 24th 20135:45 AM

Shut down your relatives' political chit-chat with patent, confusing nonsense.

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

―Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Soon, many of us will head into the cozy crucible that is the extended family Christmas dinner. There will be side-hugs, nuts with the shells on, starchy dishes, small talk, and then (sure as spring turns to summer turns to glowing autumn), it’s time for Opinions on Issues of the Day and also Life Choices You Are Making.

Perhaps in the past, you’ve imagined that facts and well-reasoned arguments would work. Maybe diplomatic re-routing was the way to go. Keeping the same not-smile smile on your face, nodding quickly and answering with one word. How did these stratagems work out for you?

No more. This year, you stop bringing a pleasant, reasonable knife to a gunfight. This year, your responses will completely derail any conversation in progress. This year, your dinner table blather will leave everyone feeling quiet, unsettled, and somehow reminded of that time at summer camp when an allergic kid got stung by a bee and then died.

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If you're not jolly, yet, you need to go have some Milk Punch or a shot of bourbon on the rocks.

How to cure the Sunday blues (with an update about a giveaway)

Self-portrait on a red wall

1. Read about someone who was politically incorrect, like Dorothy Parker, who said, Tell him I was too f*&king busy, or vice versa. 
2. Wish you could say that to someone but sort of happy that you can't.
3. Do laundry, mounds and mounds of it, but don't fold The Brothers' socks. Let them fold them.
4. Read another 30 pages of War and Peace and realize that it's getting good and you have more than 1000 pages to go.
5. Get a reminder that this Tuesday is Sophie's 15th IEP at 8:00 in the morning. Seize the day, however blue it is, since there's not an IEP.
6. Play Words with Friends throughout the morning with one of your best friends in the world who is also turning 51 years old tomorrow, but since he's in Germany, it's already his birthday. Happy Birthday, dear D.
7. Plan to see a bunch of movies in the coming week since you haven't heard, yet, about The Job You Hope to Get.
8. Organize all your paperwork so that tomorrow, Monday, you can go see a movie.
9. Make Chocolate Digestive Biscuits from a recipe on one of your favorite cooking and reading blogs. ( and Yummybooks is having a terrific giveaway!)
10. Remember that it's Mother's Day next Sunday and you haven't gotten something for your mother, so you have to get up and get out of the gloomy Sunday house and get on with it.

Reader, how do you cure the Sunday blues?