I know many of you are in the same boat as me and Chris right now — we’re in the midst of playing musical family houses, each of us following the partner into their respective family’s houses and waiting until it’s FINALLY time to go home.
Whether you’re exasperated by playing house-pong like I am when we visit Chris’s long-divided-by-divorce family, or whether your face is about to fall off from fake-smiling as you trail your oblivious partner around her family’s house as Chris is, the holiday stress is only added to, when, like us, you’re the only deafies in the family and constantly trying to keep tabs on what’s going on.

But, much to our surprise, this years’ visits have been quite enjoyable. Eye-rolling and silent cursing still pervade, yes, but there’s also been a surprising number of good memories made. After some thought, here’s a few theories we have as to why this year has been relatively painless:

1. We invited other deafies: This is especially handy if a) the event in question is a large family dinner and b) you happen to have a longtime deaf family friend in town who isn’t doing anything that night. Bonus points if that friend has since gained a significant other: all of a sudden you’ve accumulated enough bodies to populate The Deaf Table, thus fulfilling your familial obligation to show up and show Aunt Maisie how much you’ve grown, but not to sit there bobbing your head in that perpetual deaf nod. The first time we did this, I ended up texting my mother later that night: “Can we do that again next year?”
2. We paced our itinerary: One of our best trips this year at first looked like the most exhausting — first we visited each of Chris’ parents’ houses in turn, carefully making sure our time was equally divided, and then we visited his brother’s for brunch, and then stopped by his sister’s later in the evening to drop off some furniture we’d picked up at his brother’s and ended up staying for dinner, crashing on her futon, and then traveling back upstate to see his great-grandmother, who was sick in the hospital.In all, five different stops with different family members. While it took a lot of suitcase-living and gas-tank refilling, the result was some surprisingly meaningful one-on-one time with each part of the family. We had more meaningful conversations with each relative, and there’s no doubt that that was because we’d chosen intimate meals with each in lieu of the mass family gathering. No more relying on Mom for interpreting, no more rubbing eyes ready to fall out of our head after hours of darting around the room trying to figure out who was talking now.

   In fact, I think we got access to more family gossip during this trip than we did in our entire childhoods together. Who knew they were interesting people too?!

3. We came prepared: For me, this means bringing a bottle of Jack Daniels’ and an eye mask. Har har. Historically, I just pack three or four books and hope for the best. But lately this also means bringing our laptops and knowing where wi-fi connectivity is available. This way, we get to show our families what we’ve been up to by way of our blogs or the websites of organizations and activities we’re involved in. It also serves as great insurance should certain relatives suddenly forget we exist or need to run their own errands. We’re also blessed with a kid — anytime we find ourselves at a loss for small talk, we just look over at whatever cutesy thing she’s doing (stabbing her pricey new Nintendo, for example) and giggle in shared adoration. This year we discovered Apples and Apples, a great game also available in a junior version that doesn’t actually require the hassle of slow interpreting (like, say, my family’s favorite game, Trivial Pursuit), but can be great for conversation starting. Try Cranium as well, although deafies need to be on the same team, or, if you’re all talked out, Blokus.
4. We had a better attitude: Where before our angst just seemed to multiply every second we missed a word, for some reason, this year it hasn’t seemed to matter as much as self-preservation has. Dude, these people demand to see us all the time. For better or for worse, that must mean we mean something to them, after all. We went knowing we may full well be heading into a maelstrom of emotional drama served with a side of inadvertent exclusion, but this time we scooped on an extra helping of acceptance and optimism. What mattered most to us this time around was not so much turning a family trip into a civil rights march as making sure the kid got to know the people with whom we grew up.

And if ever we found ourselves tru-biz shoved under the coffee table and smiled at whenever we made a peep, well, it was their loss. We’d just turn the page in our suspense thriller and wait for morning to come. But more often than not, we shoved the bookmark in and found someone to chat up.