Ask a Middle-Aged Lady Mom
How to get through a season of angst and awkwardness!
Holiday celebrations often involve spending lots of time with friends and family and with it comes it’s own special kind of hell. Perhaps these get-togethers leave your insides feeling heavier and grosser than that little sack of organs1 stuffed inside the cavity of a turkey.
You’ve heard of a White Christmas, but have you heard of a White (Lie) Thanksgiving? It’s your Middle-Aged Lady Mom Hack and it goes with all your awkward social situations.
Let’s see it in action, shall we?
Q: As an adult it is clear how unaligned my values are with the majority of my family. I don’t like conflict so I generally keep my mouth shut, but I’m dreading the holidays this year and all the little jibs and jabs that are sure to come my way. How can I shut down the conversation without totally shutting down myself?
MALM: Ewwww, how annoying! But also really fun with some simple reframing! Honestly, ruining people’s insults with feigned ignorance is one of my favorite pastimes! When one of those jib jabs gets hurled your way, follow this script:
THEM: Insult insult insult jibbity-jabbity passive agressive dig!
(The chorus laughs!)
YOU (with a good-natured chuckle): What? What did you say?
THEM: Huh?
YOU: (Smiling and chuckling):I didn’t hear you! Please repeat! What was so funny?
(Chorus abruptly stops laughing. What WAS so funny?)
THEM: Uhhhhh…I said passive aggressive jib jab diggity do. It was a joke!
(Chorus tentatively starts laughing again.Yeah! It was just a joke!)
YOU: Wait, what? (Act frustrated by your own silly ignorance!) I don’t get it. Whatttttt??? Hahahhahaha, OMG I must be tired! Or drunk! Maybe it’s the psilocybin I’ve been microdosing since I got here. What does it mean??? EXPLAIN IT TO ME!
Best case scenario, the jib-jabber has to walk you through their stupid, ignorant insults in front of a crowd which will be about as amusing and recounting their dream in which none of you were in. Second best case scenario, they roll their eyes, call you a snowflake, and ask you to please explain microdosing.
Another great tactic? Laugh along with their dumb jokes. Totally disarming! They never see it coming!
Ohhh good one, Uncle Fester! A whine cellar! I get it! So clever!
Q: I don’t want to go to my cousin’s house for Thanksgiving this year. It takes an hour and half to drive there and back, the food is subpar, there’s so many people including several of my cousin’s friends whom I don’t know and will likely never see again, and the whole experience leaves my family and I totally drained and grumpy for the rest of the weekend. Do I have to go? Can you get me out of it?
MALM: No and YES! Let’s gooooooooo! I mean— don’t gooooooooo! Here’s a great way out if you’re not afraid of karma. Tell them your spouse just threw up. He doesn’t look so good. Maybe it’s food poisoning or maybe it’s that awful stomach bug that’s been tearing through their office. Gosh, I hope not. Let them know the rest of the family are so far feeling ok then ask your cousin if they still want you to come. HA! Of course they don’t want your skanky asses anywhere near their Thanksgiving! They’d rather you show up with Covid! You are home free in your PJs enjoying a delicious box of Stove Top stuffing!
Q: I hate the food my mother-in-law cooks for Thanksgiving. Her stuffing is too soupy and that’s the best of everything she makes! But she won’t let anyone bring a dish so we’re all stuck eating garbage food, pretending it’s delicious, and trying to not make her feel bad when we don’t ask for seconds. YUCK! Please! I just want one Thanksgiving where I get to enjoy the actual meal!
MALM: One Thanksgiving I made soupy stuffing by accident. I was so scared of drying it out I swung the pendulum the other way. It still haunts me. So yeah, I can attest, no one wants that shit on their plate. Okay, time for another little white (lie) Thanksgiving magic.
Bring a side of stuffing and maybe a couple other things while you’re at it. SHE WILL BE PISSED! Be ready for daggers when you walk in the door with your arms cradling these tin-foil covered babies. Pull her aside, apologize, and say “I don’t know if «Insert her son’s name» has told you about my health issues and I don’t want to make a big deal about it, but my doctor has advised me to stay off gluten to see if that makes things less soupy— if ya know what I mean! I did NOT want to miss your fabulous meal or give you one more thing to worry about, so I made a few gluten free sides. I’m sure no one will notice. By the way, are you using a new moisturizer because your skin is glowing!”
Q: Every year my wife insists on hosting Thanksgiving and every year we order the turkey and sides from a grocery store. Easy, right? NO! Even though it will only be us, our 11-year-old son who will take a plate of rolls into his bedroom to play video games, and our neighbor who is one of her best friends, my wife will still obsess over every little detail, boss us all around, and find ways to turn what should be very little prep into days of—
MALM: Okay, I’m going to stop you right there, BART. Can I call you Bart? Because you’re definitely giving Bart vibes. It feels like this call for help might be coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE and to that I say, maybe your wife is just trying to create a beautiful holiday for you and your child would be less stressed if you got off the goddamn internet and asked her what you can do to help! Here’s some ideas:
Clean the bathroom
Pick up that piece of dental floss that’s been in the hallway for six days. SIX DAYS!
Pick-up five bags of ice
Set up the bar. do you have a signature cocktail? What about the Thanksgiving margarita she sent you are recipe for?
Bring up the good china from the basement
Fold the kid’s laundry that’s been sitting in the middle of the living room
Make your wife a drink! She sounds amazing! And beautiful! Might I recommend a Thanksgiving margarita?
BONUS ACTIVITY!
Humor writer
asked what kind of cereal your pets would be if they were a cereal. This was hotly debated in our home, but we settled on Honey Bunches of Oats for Penny. If things need some livening up, play this game with your relatives. I mean as in guess what cereal Uncle Fester2 would be— either as a group or silently in your head.Have yourselves a merry White (Lie) Thanksgiving!
XO,
Shelly
Don’t Forget About the Holiday Stress Party!
Thanksgiving is just the warm up act! There’s a whole slew of shit shows coming down the party pike and we want to hear allllllll about them! Join Kathryn Barbash, PsyD of A Wonderful Mess and Sri Juneja of Readable Moments, and I for a community discussion about managing holiday stress. Or at least laugh about it.
The party starts 12/2 and goes all week and best of all, you don’t need to leave your house or even put on pants to attend. See? We’re managing our stress already!
Follow or subscribe to Kathryn’s Substack so you’ll know exactly when this party kicks off!
As a kid, I yanked that gross little bag out of the turkey every year, rubbed the carcass with salt, peeled back it’s skin and shoved herbs and butter up in there, wrapped it in a dishtowel and then performed the “Sacrificial Oven Thanksgiving” waltz around the kitchen. This is wherethe seeds of vegetarianism were planted.
We’re all thinking Fruit Loops, right? It’s the obvious choice.
Shelly, how can I book you as my full-time festive family fuckery diffuser? We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here in Australia but we still have to endure our families over the holidays. I can’t wait to try many of the methods you have described! Also very pumped for your week of no-pants festive stress relief 👏
I wrote a whole comment and then my husband started asking me questions about who diagnosed my ADHD and what their address is because he’s signing me up for life insurance at his new company (why would they need to know about ADHD? Is it a silent killer?!) and when I came back to substack my comment draft was gone. Now I’m paralyzed. Do I attempt to recreate it? Or is the moment gone?