Sally Franz Transcript

December 29, 2007

Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors. My next guest on this holiday show is Sally Franz. Did I pronounce that correctly?

Sally Franz: Yes. Hi, how are you?

Kent: Hi, very good. She’s come to talk to us about her new book, “Stressing Down for the Holidays: 25 Tips to Peel You Off the Ceiling”. Give me a little sound clip about that.

Sally: Well basically it’s looking at what our expectations are and what we can really do in this modern era to create family traditions that are not hard on us. A lot of the things that have been passed down generation-to-generation are just not possible with how we live our lives today.

Kent: And I noticed by looking through some of it that you deal with some issues that definitely pop up in my family, and I’m sure in many families. When you say ‘Grinches’, I tend to be Grinch sometimes, and I think all of us have certain aspects of this. Let’s start out by talking about the value of the holidays. New Year’s is coming up and we have resolutions coming up later, but this is the season of family gatherings. Tell me a little bit about how we can have healthy family gatherings.

Sally: First of all, let me just say that anyone listening can get this booklet - it’s actually an e-book - for free if they go to BabyBoomerTalkRadio.com. And when you go to the Boomer Boutique, which is our store, you just scroll down to the bottom, click on the PDF and you can actually be reading along with us as you’re listening, and it’s free. I think the most important thing is to understand what stress is. Stress is the difference between what we wanted and what we got.And if we were expecting ‘Uncle Booze Hound’ to be sober for one hour, and at the end of the holiday dinner, we’re in the kitchen and we’re throwing things in the sink saying, “Why couldn’t those two just stop talking politics for one hour?”, the answer is they would if they could, but they’re not going to. So how are you going to still have a lovely holiday, given that every family has its person that’s nuts?

Kent: Absolutely. So was your family trouble-free as a kid?

Sally: No. We had a mixed family - his, hers and theirs - way before people were doing that. We had a tradition where all five kids had to stand in front of the fireplace, posing as they hung their stocking. And every single picture for 20 years, somebody’s all puffy-eyed from crying - at least one of the kids is miserable Christmas Eve. So there was screaming and yelling, and then the aunts came, and the aunts were saying things like, “shush, quiet, quiet”, to five year olds. I had a twin brother; you can imagine the chaos.I think the key thing is to say, what do we love about the holidays? For instance, if you’re a homemaker, or better yet, you’re the holiday-maker - which could be man or woman - you’re the one in charge of the pageant.If you really love the idea of lit candles and beautiful flowers in the middle of the table and everyone’s sitting around, but you’re kind of fantasizing that it’s some other family; one of the things that you could do is have a buffet dinner, and then ask anyone who’d like to join you for dessert around the table. So it’s only limited to five or ten minutes and that way hopefully they can behave themselves for five or ten minutes, but they may not be able to. But at least you had your moment without actually ruining your dinner.

Kent: And it always seems that these family gatherings can get quite lengthy. What’s your take on… One of my fiance’s pet peeves is that when we visit with family, the women segregate themselves; it’s a societal thing. I’ve tried my hand at getting into the cooking and the dishwashing and do a bit of that, but I feel like an unwelcome participant. The men and women segregate, what do you have to say about that part of the holiday?

Sally: Well of course some of the fun is hanging out with either family, or like you said, all the women may be in the kitchen, and three may be sitting on stools at the kitchen bar, and the others are whipping something up, but it’s a fellowship thing. There was a guy that did a one-man show, ‘The Caveman’, Rob Becker. He talks about a very funny incident where he tries to join the women and he realizes he doesn’t have any of those skills because he’s a guy.The guys are all talking about potato chips, they get down to the last one, and the one guy goes, “You ate the last one; you have to get the next bag.”. And the next guy says, “No, I brought this bag!”. The other guys says, “It’s my house.”, so they argue about who’s going to do it. The women, as they get down low on chips, all walk together over to the chip bag and fill it together, and then walk back to where they were sitting. So when the guy comes in and gets down to the last chip, he goes, “I’m not going to fill it; I just filled the other one.”, and they all look at him like he’s crazy.So the question is if you really do want to participate and you also want the women to know that you don’t think it’s their share, you could make a declaration that after the meal, the men are going to do all the cleaning up, and the women can sit and watch anything they want on the television.

Kent: Exactly. They can turn the football on and fall asleep.

Sally: Yeah, like that’s going to happen. They’ll be watching Martha Stewart or something.

Kent: And then you talk about in the book some of the more difficult things. I’m always thinking on the holidays about certain friends of mine who are alone somewhere in the world on the holiday to people that might have lost their families or never had a family. Talk a little bit about that.

Sally: I think the real key here is how do you cure the ease of the malaise or the stress of the holiday. I think the number one thing - and if you’re not doing this, get going - is to start doing either random acts of kindness or join an organization that is helping people less fortunate.Every synagogue, every church, every curb right now is collecting toys, food and things for needy families. And if you don’t know how to do that just go directly to Salvation Army or directly to Social Services, and they have lists and lists of families that are not going to have a Christmas, that are not going to have a holiday at all, and start giving.I know lots of people, and I’ve done it myself, where I was alone on Thanksgiving, so I just went to the nearest soup kitchen and helped serve. And I could be around people and I could laugh, see smiling faces and I got fed.

Kent Gustavson: It’s true. I’ve done that also on Thanksgiving and it’s a very fun experience. Kind of on the other side of the spectrum, we’ve got families that definitely have each other and are grateful to have each other, but one person comes in and is a ‘Grinch’, and that’s the term you use. Tell me about the old grievances.

Sally: Again, you are not going to cure 30 years or 50 years of dysfunction just because you wish it so. God bless you, but get rid of your magical thinking. Then it’s like triage. What are we going to do to save the day? And one of the things you can do is say - if the Grinch is a political nit-picker - is anyone who wants to talk politics with ‘Uncle Grinch’ can go sit in that corner. The rest of use who want to eat pumpkin pie and go throw snowballs during that kind of climate, we’re going to go do that.I think the most important think is compartmentalizing both the day and the people. The other thing that’s really, really important for the pageant producer; please have other people who are coming - if you don’t have family and you’re single - assigned to these difficult people.So if you have the goth, whacked-out teenager who’s in a mood even before they get in the door, and you’ve got what I call the ‘free-range’ two-year-olds who’s parents say, “We never spank them or correct them; we never say the ‘no’ word.”, and they also never watch them and now it’s your house. So when you have those kinds of things, you say to your sister, “You’re in charge of the two-year-old.”, and your mother, “You’re in charge of the grandchildren.”. You assign them out. Now you did bring up an interesting question, what if you’re the Grinch?

Kent: Right.

Sally: I do sit down at Christmas time - Christmas is my holiday - and I say “At what point have we stopped giving and it now feels like extortion?”. And some years it’s not until the end that you find out that even though you finished with all your shopping in November, there actually are three more gifts. I just got an email from my ex-husband’s family, and they all said “Well you’re in the Christmas grab bag!”, and that was one of the things I was looking forward to getting out of. It’s just that now I got to go do that.

Kent: There’s a certain stigma attached to a lot of events. I guess we all have the required event and the events that we like. And it’s kind of like taking the sugar to help the medicine go down. Do you have your favorite events on Christmas or on New Year’s?

Sally: You really nailed it. There are some things you really look forward to. I lived in New York City for a while, up on the Upper Eastside, and there was a church - I don’t remember the name - and they would play their organ and bells, on the loudspeaker system, Christmas carols. And it was a tradition, everybody in the neighborhood - and I mean this is New York City and people are coming out of high rise buildings, I was on the 25th floor - all just started gathering and singing to the hymns, to the Christmas carols. And it’s just a magical thing, and nobody organizes it except the people that put the music on, and everybody just gathers. That was very cool.And then I lived in California and one of the big things was to go to sing ‘The Messiah’ with a full orchestra. The guy would hand you the entire ‘Messiah’ music, and I can read about every other note. The altos would sit there and somebody would lead you in singing almost the entire ‘Messiah’. It’s really cool.

Kent: I know for some people that would drive them nuts. My family is Swedish and my sister loves to make these cookies that are just solid butter and sugar, and I can understand how she likes them, but I can’t stand them. And so we always joke about it. She says, “Oh, I made these cookies.”. and I say, “Oh, I hate those cookies.”.

Sally: Are they like apple skivers?

Kent: No, they’re deep-fried. They’re pretty good.

Sally: It sounds wild. Well I think the big this is, again, everybody brings their favorite cookie, and everybody says you don’t have to eat those cookies, I hope. I think one of the most important things is to save the stuff you love. If your family absolutely loves making gingerbread men and decorating them, save that one; but don’t do the one where you have to go ice-skating at the mall or whatever it is. I used to love to carol as a kid. We got together gangs of kids and we’d go door-to-door, and we just loved Christmas carols; we did it for hours. We did it longer than we did trick-or-treating in the same neighborhood.The key thing is the family needs to sit down, or the single person needs to sit down, and make a list of all the things they love. Then, actually do like you do at a job, do a time frame. OK, making sure Christmas cookies that are decorated, and I have that in my book sort of as a joke. It takes like five hours usually and everybody eats them in two seconds, and they didn’t even notice that the little red hats made of hearts; they just chomped right into them. So cut corners, gift bags for gifts not wrapped, pre-made bows. Just make it easy on yourself.

Kent: And what about New Year’s? Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?

Sally: I sat down one day and I went I don’t keep any of these resolutions. They’re a joke and they’re embarrassing. And then I feel guilty and that’s no way to start the new year. So I like to make a list of New Year’s resolutions that are easy to keep. And actually when you look at it, it gives you so much joy that it would actually be easier to give up the drinking, the smoking, the weight gain, whatever you were trying to get rid of.What if you just made a resolution that you were going to watch a funny video or DVD every single week, at least one where you fell apart on the floor, something like “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” or whatever it is. And then maybe you make another resolution that you’re going to eat some kind of fantastic chocolate at least once a week. And making yourself happy actually makes you a person that has a lot more energy, and that energy you can use to feel better, and usually then you don’t have to go drug yourself.

Kent: Those sound like some pretty good resolutions to a lot of people, I’m sure.

Sally: And the other thing is if you’re not laughing out loud almost to the point where eggnog comes out of your nose, you are not doing the holidays right. Most people don’t laugh that hard, but it could be hysterical.