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Step 1
Choose your seat wisely. Make sure you sit next to or across from relatives you actually like and keep the conversation as much amongst these elite as you can. If you swear you don’t have at least one relative you do like, sit near the ones that annoy you the least.
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Step 2
Try to always have (or always look like you have) food in your mouth. This will limit the amount of actual conversations you’ll have to participate in.
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Step 3
Offer to help out if the host or hostess of this dinner happens to be a relative you enjoy. Get drink refills for whoever needs one. Bring out seconds of the sweet potatoes. This constant getting up and down from the table will make staying in a conversation hard and will give you needed breaks from listening to Uncle Harry and Grandpa Joe argue over who was the best softball player in their softball league in 1921.
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Step 4
Use your cell phone as your life line. Have it in your pocket on vibrate or silent and should things really get bad, fake a phone call that needs your immediate attention. Maybe your friend is having some kind of inconsolable crisis you need to listen to. Take the fake phone call into another room and hide out until you are missed.
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Step 5
Should an unpleasant relative start a direct conversation with you that you have no way of avoiding (as in, you’ve tried ignoring them and they just won’t have any of that), picture an anvil falling on their head the entire time they’re talking to you. While it’s not actually happening, picturing it will likely make you smile and seem interested in whatever they are discussing with you.
