As we get older, family parties become more and more difficult. Between the smothering amounts of love you receive from old relatives you haven’t seen since you were five, and hardly remember, to the fact that there’s almost never anyone your age there, family parties can be rough. But family is family and you will always love them to the end of the earth, no matter how many times they embarrass you. That doesn’t make these parties any easier to get through.
There are two fool-proof ways to survive these. First, always ask if you can bring a friend. It may seem weird, bringing a friend to a family party, but we all have that one friend who has been there from the beginning and knows how your family works. They’ve seen them in action before your eighth grade graduation and at your dance recitals and football games. Always ask to bring that friend because they know your family, and chances are they practically are family. Everyone has that one friend who is with them so often they’ve met the whole family, and your family probably thinks of them as family, as well, so it wouldn’t be weird to bring them.
By bringing a friend to a family party it allows you to have someone else to talk to besides your family. This may sound odd because the point of a family party is to spend time with your family, but as a teen you can often only take so much of your family. Plus, family members are often embarrassing. That’s what family does, they embarrass you. They bring up the stories from when you were a child and you mispronounced words in the worst ways. Having a friend there allows you a way to escape that embarrassment. And if you do get to that point where you can’t take anymore, go have some one on one time with your bud. Go for a walk or play some soccer. If you really need to, go hide in someone’s room and just talk.
Another way to handle family parties is to offer a taxi service.  If your family partakes in the consumption of alcoholic beverages at these events, chances are you won’t want them driving themselves home. As long as no one lives too far away, send out a general offer to everyone to pick them up and drop them off. Before the party coordinate times with everyone and pick up everyone that has requested a ride to the party. Depending on how many takers you get this may take more than just fifteen minutes, and since most people won’t want to be an hour or so early, you will be able to skip out on the first hour or so of the party. The same goes for driving people home. As the party starts to wind down, start offering rides home to the people you picked up. It may even be a good idea to offer rides to the people you didn’t pick up as well, in case they drank more than was intended. If you’re lucky enough, you may even get a few tips from the more generous partakers.