10 Most Dysfunctional Family Holiday Movies, Ranked. The best Christmas movies set within the dynamics of a dysfunctional family are forever popular because they are relatable and funny, like these 10.
- Dysfunctional Family Christmas Bingo
- Dysfunctional Family Christmas Bingo Cards
- Dysfunctional Family Christmas Bingo Games
- A commercial for the album Dysfunctional Family Christmas, featuring songs like 'Let's Pretend We Like Each Other (This Christmas),' 'The Almost Perfect Chri.
- How to Play Christmas Bingo. Give each player 1 Christmas Bingo Card. (If you like, you can also give each player 2 or more cards.) Have everyone cross out the “Free Space” square in the middle of their Christmas Bingo Cards. Alternatively, use a Bingo chip, M&M, bead, Lego, coin or any small toy to mark the square.
Dysfunctional Family Christmas Bingo
A Fun Game to Cope With Family During the Holidays
Last Thanksgiving Cousin Bob decided to dance, after consuming way too much alcohol, on the table in the middle of dinner. Your aunt argued with your husband about politics and religion. Your children found a way to break your great aunt’s favorite crystal bowl, and your brother asked to borrow a couple hundred dollars to tide him over, again. If it seems like your extended family is serving up huge helpings of dysfunction along with the candied yams, read on.
Trying to change relatives, especially around the holidays, is a recipe for disaster. It never works, and it can add unnecessary stress and anxiety. One way to combat the need to manage everyone’s behavior and control the uncontrollable is to adjust your expectations by anticipating their usual behaviors. Martha Beck came up with a hilarious way to cope with holiday family mania (and maniacs), called Dysfunctional Family Bingo.
Ready?
Find one or two other players, such as a few of your best friends, and set a wager that the losers must buy the winner lunch. Adding the element of competition to this can make it even more fun.
Create your own bingo card by using the table feature in Word or by drawing a 5 x 5 grid, five lines down, and five lines across. Block out the middle square as a FREE SPACE. (See helpful photo, above, if you are a visual learner.)
Design your own BINGO card by coming up with 24 dysfunctional events that are likely to happen at the holiday event of your choice. “My nieces will say the food is gross, ” “Daphne will want to debate about the war,” “someone will start a belching contest,” and “Ivy will tell yet another story about how horrible her boyfriend is” are examples. Write one event on each blank square of the Bingo card.
Dysfunctional Family Christmas Bingo Cards
Hide your Bingo card in your pocket or purse when you attend the family gathering. When each event actually occurs, discreetly mark off the corresponding square on your card.
The same rules of traditional Bingo apply. When you successfully mark off five squares in a row horizontally, vertically or diagonally, it’s time to notify your competitors. Use your cell phone to text the word BINGO to the other players, or call them privately and whisper BINGO into the phone. Collect your after holiday lunch prize and enjoy laughing about family antics.
Acknowledging that sometimes holidays aren’t as “Norman Rockwell” as we’d like them to be, see if you can try a new approach to holiday survival this year. By anticipating what will happen, and then choosing not to attempt to change your family, you can love and enjoy them as they are, in the moment. Have fun!
It’s Christmas season. Decorated trees are setting up camp in living rooms across the globe, carols are pumping out declarations of ‘peace on Earth’, ‘joy to the world’ and celebrating ‘silent night, holy night’. Netflix has released a host of feel-good Christmas romance movies about time travelling Christmas knights (Yeah, I’m confused too) and women all over Pinterest are planning DIY wreaths, table settings and pinning pictures of mittened hands gripping toasted marshmallow hot chocolates in the snow. Everywhere you look, the fantasy of the perfect Christmas begs for attention.
Meanwhile, in reality- Christmas can be the WORST. It’ssweat-city because, newsflash we live in Australia where there’s always a droughtor bushfire at Christmastime, everyone’s sunburnt and tired, families feel likethey’re falling apart, bank accounts are empty, depression rises, and the nightis certainly not silent. It’s broken by the screaming of stressed out families,frustrated tears and sometimes emergency service sirens attending to a tragedyor domestic dispute.
Merry Christmas?
There’s no doubt Christmas can be an incredibly difficulttime, and I think the most common reason for this are those obligatory familygatherings on December 25th.
I recently put the call out on Facebook for recovering women’s best tips and tricks to surviving the Christmas season without roundhouse-kicking their entire family in the teeth, or ending the day frustrated, unhappy and exhausted. Here are seven great tips to help you experience just a little of that ‘peace on Earth’ we’re promised at Christmas.
- Don’t go. It may not feel like you have a choice, but you do. Staying home on Christmas Day is always an option, despite the expectations your family may have. Make the best choice for you. Just because you’re related by blood doesn’t mean you have to put up with their crap.
- If you choose to go, setfirm boundaries around time-frames and stick to them, making sure you have control over your transportation or way out. Clearly communicate these from the start e.g ‘We will come at 2pm until 4pm’. No further explanation is needed. Doing so will eliminate the feeling of needing to stick around all day. Long days with difficult people are no good for your mental wellbeing.
- If necessary, chose a safe word. If your partner, children or you feel unsafe andneed to get out, simply communicate that word and it’s time to leave.
- During the event, take time out where you can. Especially if you’re an introvert!Step away from socialising to do the dishes, take a short walk, do some foodprep or hang out on the toilet with your phone for a while! Just tell ‘em youhad Indian take-out for dinner the night before! You may also like to beintentional about chatting with people one-on-one if you have a favouritecousin, sibling or safe person. This avoids the stress tsunami of talking to andhaving to listen to your whole family discuss potentially triggering things.
- Prayabout it. Ask God for peace amongst chaos and opportunities for graciousand wholesome conversation. Pray for radical change in all who need helphealing wounds- including yourself.
- Games! Cards, bingo, team games, scrabble- people are usually comfortable with fun, if they’re not, they can at least watch what’s going on. This is much better than discussing politics, religion or casual racism. Games lighten the mood, build bridges and create positive memories. Except Monopoly. For the love of all that is holy, don’t bring out Monopoly at Christmas!
- Be awareof using food, sex, porn, alcohol, drugs or overspending as escape. If youstruggle with compulsive behaviours, prepare yourself for Christmas week withintentional accountability, self-care and any other preventative measures youneed.
Dysfunctional Family Christmas Bingo Games
There are no perfect families, only healthier and lesshealthy ones. Each generation will need to work through some baggage from theirupbringing, and it looks different for each individual. Whether you have traumaconnected to your family, parents with wildly different world-views to you,chronic health conditions that go misunderstood or any other stress that runshigh at Christmas- your pain is valid and you as an adult have the power tomake the best choice for you.