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How to Fake Quality Time with Family

You can't hide in your room the whole time.

friends having thanksgiving dinner

Photo Credit: Andrew McLeod

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By Eileen Conlan and Lizzie Dunlap

Here are four tips to fake quality-time with the family.

Pretend to have laryngitis: Finally, your chance to channel Holly Hunter in The Piano.

Volunteer to be the family photog: "I take the pictures; I can't be in them!" No one else can operate the digital camera anyway.

Initiate a story-time-style reading of a Christmas classic: No one will ever suspect it's a decoy for together-time without original-content.

Start a snowball fight: Pent-up anger — meet bitchy cousin's new nose.

Bring your Wii: Your competitive family will exert themselves to the point of exhaustion — and then you can have the remote to yourself.

Make cookies with the kids: Of course it was an accident you forgot about they were on a strictly organic diet.

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