It’s crunch time now. We have just a few more days before the holiday season begins and, of course, these family events you’ll be attending during the holiday season comes tons and tons of questions that you’d rather not answer. In fact, most of the time you’d rather set your own hair on fire and watch it burn rather than answer the inevitable questions such as, “So do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?” or, “So what are your plans for after graduation?” Enough is enough. Here are some great tips and tricks to attempting to avoid these dreaded questions during the holiday season.
1. Be as sarcastic as possible with your response.
For example, “Oh yeah Grandma, I’m totally going to grad school right when I graduate. I’m not taking a year off or anything.” Maybe it’s a bold tactic, but it could work depending on the person you’re dodging questions from.
2. Distraction.
Distract your family members with a cool game that you brought with you, opening presents, or a funny story that has nothing to do with the subjects that you so dreadfully want to avoid.
3. Spend time with the younger cousins in the group especially infants.
If you spend all of your time with them, they won’t ask you those awkward questions and chances are that the parents won’t actually want to spend time with the little kids. Plus, kids are fun, right?
4. Run away. Because why not?
5. Divert the conversation to another subject.
If your annoying aunt asks about your love life or how all of your cousins have their significant others over for Christmas dinner except for you, ask about politics. There’s nothing that gets a crowd more riled up.
6. Kind of mean, but you can totally put the attention back on another person.
For example, one of your cousins who is the same age as you. Get them into the conversation and make them answer the horrible questions so that you don’t have to. They might hate you, but it gets you out of an awkward position.
7. Ask THEM the questions.
If they ask you about your friends at school, change the topic of conversation to what’s going on with their own friends. No matter how boring their stories might be, it’s probably better than answering those annoying questions.
8. Shove a lot of good food into your mouth.
Hopefully, if it takes long enough for you to chew, you won’t have to answer the questions.
9. Be super anti-social.
Your mom might yell at you, but who cares? Make sure your phone is fully charged with a charger there for emergencies and just dive into the world of social media, texting friends, and other cool things on the Internet.
10. If you’re super dramatic, start choking on said piece of food from before to cause a distraction.
Just hope that you can bounce back from it or that someone around you knows the Heimlich maneuver to save your life.
11. Lie.
Okay, maybe this isn’t the smartest idea, but a little white lie couldn’t hurt. Tell your grandparents that you’re going to be attending grad school next fall, or that you’re working on getting a job lined up for when you graduate, even if you’re not.
12. Excuse yourself from the table.
Whether it’s to help your mom with the turkey or a quick trip to the bathroom, you can probably get away with doing this a few times throughout a family gets together before it gets suspicious.
