Have an ally in the room.<\/strong> Not a political one necessarily, but a personal one. Maybe it\u2019s your husband, your best friend or your mom. Someone who knows you and the limits you\u2019ve set for yourself in this discussion arena. A person who can clue in when you\u2019ve started to get dangerously close to the edge of plunging into full debate. Determine a way for this ally to clue you in when your emotions are getting the better of you. A word. A phrase. A look that lets you know it\u2019s time to step back from that ledge.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Less is almost always more.<\/strong> Avoid tense political conversations, especially if this is someone you rarely see. Why get into a monumental argument while the figgy pudding is being served? When it\u2019s possible, let it go. And when it\u2019s impossible to step over a comment, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t see it that way,\u201d is sufficient. There is no mandate for you to explain why you disagree; you are allowed that freedom.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Enter the conversation believing the best in someone. <\/strong>This is especially difficult when we share a history with people. But the more we are able to believe the good motives of another person, the easier it is to accept differences of opinion. If someone is trying to provoke a disagreement, don\u2019t take the bait. If you are focusing on the reasons you love or at least appreciate the other person, this will prove to be much easier to do.<\/p>\n This has been a rough political year for everyone, where name-calling and heightened emotions have been the hallmarks of candidates and the voting public. Let this be a time of peacemaking because nothing conveys the Christmas spirit better than a truce. We will all be the better for it.<\/p>\n Alexandra Kuykendall<\/strong> Here it is, the first Christmas season post the craziest presidential election in recent history, and you have to go over the river and through the woods to grandmother\u2019s house to face Uncle Bob or your sister\u2019s neighbor. You know, the ones whose Facebook posts have informed you that they voted in a way you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":4535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,102],"tags":[24,858,792,859,26,103,78,61,87,860,854,861,276,684,855],"class_list":["post-4534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-relationships","tag-christmas","tag-complete","tag-conversation","tag-discuss","tag-family","tag-holidays","tag-home","tag-joy","tag-love","tag-politics","tag-shalom","tag-table","tag-talk","tag-time","tag-wholeness"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.mops.org\/images\/cms_images\/alex-2.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n
\nAs a mom to four girls, Alexandra Kuykendall\u2019s days are spent washing dishes, driving to and from different schools and trying to find a better solution to the laundry dilemma. She is the author of\u00a0Loving My Actual Life, An Experiment In Relishing What\u2019s Right In Front of Me<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0The Artist\u2019s Daughter, \u00a0A Memoir<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0A city girl at\u00a0heart, she makes her home in the shadow of downtown Denver. You can read more of\u00a0Alex\u2019s everyday thoughts and connect with her at\u00a0AlexandraKuykendall.com<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"