Categories: Family Life

How To Survive Your Family Cookout This Summer

We are now in the season for family cookouts, but for some, the family cookout is the last place they want to be. When its hot outside and you Aunt Gertrude with the foul breath wants to have an hour long discussion about your future, use some of these helpful tips to maintain your sanity.

When in doubt, dance it out

What is a family cookout without some good music? For the times when the older generation tries to corner you in and ask about where you want to be in the next ten years or god forbid when you’re getting married, find your way to the dance floor. People are less likely to try to have a conversation with you while you’re dancing.

If you’re not a dancer, don’t worry, just gently sway to the music. The main point of this tip is that busing yourself with another activity can really help with unwanted attention and questions. It is an easy way to avoid uncomfortable situations, so you don’t have worry!

Find your person

Most of the time, there is at least one person there that you can connect with and talk to. If you didn’t come with them, find that family member that you can just sit and laugh with. At the end of the day, the family cookout should be fun, it should not be an event full of anxiety and dread. So, to make it as enjoyable as possible, find a person that you can have a good time with.

Go in with a game plan

When the inquisition starts at the family cookout, you need to be prepared because stumbling over your answers is not an option. If you’re like me, I start to sweat and stutter, so it really is a rough time. In order to avoid such unpleasantness, go in with answers. They don’t have to be the answers that your family wants to hear, but they should be answers your comfortable with.

You know your family better than anyone, so play the conversation over in your head and that way no matter how it goes, it won’t be new territory for you. At the end of the day, you are the only person that needs to be fine with the way you live your life, so don’t make it your goal to try to please everyone.

See Also

You don’t have to stay the whole time

Unfortunately, not everyone enjoys their family, and no matter how much effort is put in, no difference is made. For those cases, sometimes its absence that makes the heart grow fonder. If you know that you only can last a short while around your family, plan to leave earlier or come later. It will be miserable for everyone if you stay the whole time when you clearly don’t want to be there. So know yourself to know your limit.

Enjoy this time while you can

We can all joke and kid about going to a family cookout and getting annoyed by the loud mouth uncle that wants to talk about the good ole days, but be mindful that these moments are precious. Some of my fondest memories of family members that have past are from my family cookouts. Even when I got annoyed and frustrated with them, I still look back fondly.

That is what is important. At the end of the day a family cookout isn’t meant to punish all in attendance, but to bring the family together in a way that might not have normally happened. So, what are your fondest memories of your family cookout?

Featured image: Craig Adderley from Pexels
Share
Chantel Kelly

Recent Posts

15 Most Festive Ways To Decorate Your Kent State Dorm Room For The Holidays

Snow flurries have started to dance through the chilly air, Christmas tree farms are ripe for the picking, and you…

1 hour ago

10 Movies About Teens You Need to Watch Right Now

Teen movies always generate mixed feelings. Either they will remind you of a simpler time and make you nostalgic, or…

5 hours ago

14 Dogs Having A Better Birthday Than You

I believe dogs should have the right to celebrate their birthday as much as humans do. Now let’s take a…

13 hours ago

10 Things Every Kent State Girl Needs In Her Purse

If you’re like me, your backpack is your purse, but some girls like to keep it stylish and shoulder that…

17 hours ago

25 Signs You’re a Delta Gamma at Kent State University

Being in a sorority has not only given me best friends but family, too. I can go to any one…

20 hours ago

22 Times French Bulldog Puppies Were Just The Cutest

I have lately been obsessing over getting a dog. While I can’t get one now since I am in college,…

1 day ago