Holiday Parties: How to say no when you don't want to go

“Sometimes social anxiety means you’re terrible at small talk and you don’t know how to be fake.”

~Mel Robbins

I love holiday parties, mostly;) I love getting together with friends and family. I love hosting and seeing everyone laugh and have a great time. But I despise large holiday parties. I am a highly selective extrovert. In the right setting, I am outgoing, joyful, and fun. In large gatherings, however, I feel awkward and uncomfortable. I find small talk and mingling to be challenging. It takes a lot of mental prep work to get me in the right head space. At the end of the event, I feel depleted and exhausted. If this sounds like you, here are some tips to get you through. 

Choose your parties deliberately.

You don’t have to accept every holiday party invitation. A lot of us accept invitations because we feel obligated to attend. We worry that we will disappoint our friends and family. Then we feel resentful, which makes it challenging to get into the holiday small talk mode. Multiply this by several events, and you can see how our holiday cheer gets depleted.

This doesn’t mean that you say no to every party. I suggest you look at your joy: effort ratio.  List  all the things you will enjoy and the effort you need to make to get in the right mindset for the party. With this information, you can make an honest decision. You might decide that you don’t want to attend this party because the effort is greater than the enjoyment. I feel this way about my work holiday party. While I love all of my co-workers, I find it very difficult to mingle and have meaningful interactions with folks. The small amount of joy in one-off conversations just doesn’t outweigh the effort I need to apply to get through the night. 

Or you might decide that the joy exceeds your effort. This joy might be seeing and celebrating with people that you love. It also might be doing something your spouse or partner loves. When you attend these parties, remind yourself why you chose to attend and look for those joyful moments. 

Plan for some downtime

A lot of the stress we feel during the holiday season is from the constant go, go, go mentality. If you know that you will feel depleted after a particular event, then make sure you plan some downtime that will allow you to recharge. I know that I can’t attend events every night of the weekend. I need to have at least one night to be a homebody. On the other hand, small gatherings with close friends make me feel energized, so I don’t need to plan any downtime after those events. 

Allow others to be who they are

Some people will feel upset if you decline their event. Some will even keep pressuring you to attend. Some will not understand why you don’t want to go. That’s ok. It means that they like you and want to see you. It doesn’t mean you have to feel guilty or even explain yourself. Some things that you can try saying are. 

“It sounds like fun. I can’t make this one, but let’s plan to get together after the holidays.”

 

“These kinds of parties just aren’t my thing. But I would love to get together with you another time.”

 

“Awe, thanks. I really like hanging out with you all, but I am booked this weekend.”

This last one may feel like a lie if you don’t consider downtime an event. However, I consider downtime just as important as any other event or work. Some weekends, I am all booked up with downtime and couldn’t possibly accept another event.

Try these three steps for that next holiday to mostly unbusy your month!