Finish The Sentence Friday…This Christmas Season, I will nail the Holiday Greeting.
One thing you must know about me is that I have a large family; 7 kids on my dad’s side and 5 on my mom’s. Throw in 2-5 (sometimes more) “Love children” and you get a whole lot of cousins and a whole lot of family parties. My family is so big, that I don’t really know how many cousins I truly have. It really screws with your head not knowing who your family members might be. I sometimes worry that my husband and I might be related.
My family just knows how to mass produce humans.
We’re related.
So as Christmas draws near, so do the parties, gatherings and of course, the awkward greetings. Last year I went to a family party it took me 20 minutes to say hello to everyone there.
I personally am not a huge hugger, especially when it comes to family members that I haven’t seen in a while. Sure, I hug, kiss and touch my immediate family members all the time (O, boy-that didn’t sound right) , but that kind of intimacy stays within my family unit. (that sounds even worse). You know what I mean….
Truth is, saying hello to anyone whether it’s a stranger, friend or family can be awkward. When I lived down south (with my confederate flag and 30+ slaves) people weren’t so touchy feeling when they said “hello”. They shake hands, maybe even do a side-shoulder bump, but they keep it very subtle..in fact, so subtle, there isn’t room for awkwardness.
But, when I moved up north, EVERYONE kisses and believe it or not, not everyone from NJ/NY is Italian. But on a side note, I do try and limit the amount of Italian friends I have because of this reason.
O Shit, Not the Italians!
My anxiety with family parties do not come from Grandma’s off-handed comments or my Gothic cousin Fred; my anxiety stems from saying my hellos and my goodbyes. I literally dread walking into a room of people just knowing I have to endure 15 minutes of straight awkwardness.
See, everyone has a certain style of saying hi; some people handshake (way more my speed) and some people hug and then some people kiss. And if you don’t know the person that well, you have no idea what kind of greeting they prefer because everyone prefers a certain type of greeting.
Now, you are sitting there like, what the hell is this girl talking about, this shit doesn’t exist, but you are wrong! This shit DOES exist and in many forms:
Types of Greeters:
The Side Hugger: This person gives half-assed hugs that end up being more of like a side-shoulder hug. If you go in for the full hug and they only go halfway, you have got yourself a side-hugger. I think you all know how I feel about this type of hug.
The “Patting” hugger: This person embraces you full force like a lion, which is comforting if it’s your parent, child or spouse, but sometimes it’s your creepy uncle. Anyways, they hug you hard and pat your back more than 3 times, which is too long. You pull away like a normal person, but they are still patting and you respond by going back into the lion-hug embrace. Now, you have been hugging for more than 10 seconds and this has officially turned into an awkward, creepy hug.
The cheek kisser: This person presses their cheek against yours and makes a kissing sound as if your cheeks grew lips over-night. I’m sorry, when did our cheeks grow lips? Sometimes cheeks are greasy and leave residue on your face and that residue clogs your pores and gives you pimples. Cheeks weren’t meant to kiss.
You know Bushy hated this
The Handshake-Side Hugger: This is usually a man thing. Two men grab hands and pull each-other in for a side hug with the opposite arm. It’s cute and it’s how Gangsters say hello, but when one person leans in the wrong way, this handshake-hug can lead into a semi-square dancing show-down.
Gangster intentions turn white-boy square dancing. “Swing your partner, round and round”
Of course the White guy messes this up
The Kiss-Hug combo-er: This person goes for the kiss, then the hug. They are aggressive, which is great for you because you can follow their lead, thus leaving little room for mistakes. However, if you go for the Hug-kiss combo (the opposite order), you end up kissing them on the lips or it rolls into a full-fledged head dance.
The What-If’s…Many awkward issues can arise with saying hello…let’s first explore the full-fledged head-dance:
The Head Dance: happens with kissers, specifically the kiss-hug combo-ers or cheek kissers.
Scene: Your great aunt Maggie and you both walk over to say hello. You go to the left, she goes to the right and now you both are on a crash collision to the lips. You quickly pull back, given that your faster than she is, but she surprises you by quickly switching sides as well. Now you are back at square one.
Until one individual claims a side, this situation can begin to look like this bird on crack.
Height: You knew this was coming…One greeter is too tall, the other is too small…hugs can be awkward. I recommend skipping any type of cheek kissing in this situation because the small person is always going to under-shoot the target and end up kissing your shoulder or boob.
Height with Tall people: As a tall individual, I have grown accustom to being the “Above the fold” hugger. The “Above the fold” hugger puts their arms up high for a hug, while a “Below the fold” hugger takes the bottom portion of the hug. This usually works out fine in a tall-short situation, but never works in a tall-tall situation.
When two tall people both go “Above the fold” they end up with an awkward “high-five” and no hug.
The Handshake Diss: I call this move a handshake diss because it makes you feel stupid as shit.
Typically, this happens with someone you just met, someone you think you already met or a co-worker. Let’s take the co-worker for example. You have worked with someone for a while and now, they are leaving the company. On their last day of work, it comes time to say goodbye. You are legitimately upset because you really enjoyed this person. Maybe they made you laugh or bought you lunch or whatever…the point is you are now upset. As you say goodbye, you go in for the hug and mid-way through the other person sticks out their hand for a “professional” handshake. Now all of your body mass has been displaced toward that individual and it is too late to pull back. You have been caught and can’t even pretend you were going to tie your shoe or act like you had to sneeze. So you try and redeem yourself by quickly sticking out your hand for the shake.
Awkward for two reasons, #1, you now know that this person doesn’t have the same feelings for you and #2, other people nearby now think you have random body spasms.
With all this in mind, your holiday parties just got really complicated and saying hello is only the start. After the hello’s, you have to worry about things like how stupid you look when you eat, all the wrong things you say at the dinner table and making small talk with people you don’t give two shits about.
My advice, start the party off right by being the better “Greeter”. If you end up getting too drunk or spill food all over your outfit… hey, at least you give killer hello’s.
Have a fabulous party season and remember, your cheeks do not have lips.
