The Therapist (And Nathan Fielder) Approved Hack For Saving Holiday Get-Togethers

Social anxiety has a way of creeping up during the holidays. But according to my therapist, there’s the kind you can’t anticipate and then there’s the kind you absolutely can. Case in point: interactions with my brother-in-law. Name the topic, and we’re likely to have opposing views, whether it’s politics, parenting or just about anything in between.

This makes gathering around the holiday dinner table stressful to say the least. Practically any topic, large and small, can feel like a potential minefield—a situation made all the more complicated by my parents, who would prefer that everyone just “get along.”

I brought up this dynamic in a recent session with my therapist and he had the best-ever solution: Rehearse it.

Naturally, my mind went straight to Nathan Fielder’s HBO series, The Rehearsal—and, subsequently, Fielder’s documentary, You Can See Everything—in which he helps people prepare for potentially stressful real-life situations by practicing them in advance. (The comparison wasn’t lost on me.) But I took my therapist’s advice to heart: When you have a hunch about how a social interaction might play out, spend 15 minutes—or even just five—scenario-casting the different ways you could respond.

For example, let’s say my brother-in-law offers up a parenting opinion I disagree with (a recent one: “boys will be boys”). Knowing this is a rinse-and-repeat scenario at family gatherings, I can come up with a game plan ahead of time. One solution I landed on with my therapist: Adjust the seating chart so I’m not at the same end of the table as he is. Instead, I’ll sit between my two chatty aunts, making me less likely to get pulled into a debate.

My backup plan? Offer to wash dishes and exit the room, or have a benign subject change ready whenever the conversation veers into more incendiary territory.

Bonus points if you bring your partner into the rehearsal, especially if they’re likely to get equally riled up by those opposing opinions. After all, it helps to be on the same page before you’re sitting across from the person who pushes all your buttons.

Of course, this isn’t to say you should avoid controversial topics altogether. It’s more about taking some of the unpredictability out of social situations so that one unexpected comment doesn’t hijack your entire evening.

The takeaway? You can’t control what someone else says at the holiday dinner table, but you can control how you respond. A little advance practice can help you stay focused on what actually matters: enjoying the people you’re there to celebrate with. In other words, make like Fielder.