Survival Tips For Christmas If You Are Introverted

Survival tips for Christmas, if you are introverted!

Vicky is looking forward to Christmas this year very much. She has been working a lot throughout the year. Her annual leave took only for a few days, therefore she is excited to spend plenty of holiday time with her family soon.

Vicky is preparing for this period indeed. Since September, she has been collecting movie and book tips she plans to watch or read. She works as a purchasing assistant for a large company, where a Christmas party takes place each December, with all team members invited.

The Christmas company dinner includes unlimited consumption of food and drinks. Therefore, most of the colleagues are looking forward to this nice party.

Except for Vicky.

Why isn’t Vicky looking forward to the Christmas party? Doesn’t she want to enjoy delicious food and drinks? Or maybe she doesn’t have the proper dress for this occasion? In fact, neither of these. You need to look for the answer somewhere else.

December is the time for office Christmas dinners, gatherings with friends and big family celebrations. If you work for a bigger firm, some colleagues might be strangers, since they may work in remote departments or in other locations.

Just like Vicky, many people consider these parties not being able to provide options for going into intimate or friendly conversations with others. They rather observe these occasions mostly about polite small talks which makes little sense. Vicky is getting on well with her coworkers in the office and the colleagues like her very much. However, she doesn’t enjoy herself in a place where so many people get together. She doesn’t mind having fun, but she prefers leaving on time. What she misses most about these events is that she cannot talk to those few people she would love to. She does not suffer from social anxiety and she doesn’t hate people.

She is just introverted.

If you are an introverted person –similarly to Vicky-, your primary intention is not necessarily to avoid company. On the contrary:  you are an excellent observer with whom extroverts love to talk to. Therefore, extroverts rarely understand why people like Vicky don’t enjoy social gatherings.

The office Christmas party is not an attractive program for Vicky because the estensive amount of stimulus from outside becomes pretty tiring after a while, so after spending some time there she would rather retreat to recharge.

She needs oxygen and silence, you can say. Therefore, being an introvert, pay particular attention to how many invitations you accept and which party to take part. If you know yourself well, try to decide which occasions you are happy to attend, where you are likely to have fun. This applies not only to office parties but also to large family gatherings.

Here are some practical tips on how to survive company or family parties if you find them too exhausting:

Accept the invitation only hypothetically

If you aren’t sure whether you’ll enjoy the event, but you don’t want to hurt the person, here is how to respond. Tell them you will probably go, but you still need to finalize your program. This will offer you an escape option if you don’t feel like joining the party. If you feel like going, you will of course be happy to attend.

Ask for details

It is good to know who will be present at the dinner, how many of them and where the party is being organized. By asking these details, you can prepare yourself more thoroughly for the event, so you will doubtless enjoy yourself more.

Relax before and after the party

You can even come up with a plan for this. Do not organize or attend any similar major celebrations before and after the particular day, so it will help you to “survive” when you get there.

Get away for a while

Do notice when you feel most stressed during the party, when people are annoying for you, and step aside for a while to “relax”. This can be a quick and effective technique because none will pay attention in the crowd when you are not around. If there is no other place, even the bathroom can offer a couple of relaxing moments for you. Some prefer going out to the street pretending that they need to make a phone call or do any other activity.

Try to be busy

This is one of the most practical approaches to avoid having shallow, small talks with others. At a family dinner, for example, they may need your help for setting up the table or moving dirty glasses into the dishwasher. Perhaps you can take the drinks out of the fridge and serve them on the tables. With these little activities, you can stay away from the crowd for a few minutes. Furthermore, you may even be of a useful service to the host, for which they will be grateful by all means.

Ask questions

If you are introverted, your major strength is listening carefully to others. You can use this skill of yours by asking questions. Since most people love to talk about themselves, your questions will help them play a more active role during the conversation. And who knows? You may even find yourself in a compelling discussion that will engage your interest!

By practicing these tactics wisely, you will definitely enjoy an office or family party much more.

We at INTRENIQ wish to all our introverted and extroverted readers a Merry Christmas!