With Thanksgiving coming up, everyone attending a family lunch or dinner needs to mentally prepare for difficult conversations. No matter if you see these family members every weekend or only during the holidays, you need to censor your word and topic choice. With the multitude of people gathering for meals and the physiological association of the holidays with bliss and connection, everyone talks to each other with either no filter and/or censorship.
Although I am writing this, while I’m with a lot of people I’m comfortable with, I am an open book with little filters. Therefore, with my experience of either getting in trouble with my parents after hosting gatherings or family disagreement at the table, I present: Sophia Han’s Holiday Table No-No’s.
Etiquette
My personal biggest pet peeve during the holidays is when someone either uses the wrong napkin during the meal or starts to eat before everyone sits down/or gets their food. This may just be me and how I’m particular since I’m the one that sets the table, but the fancy cloth napkins aren’t to be used to spit out or to clean up big messes! Students, these napkins are being used year after year, don’t ruin them! Also, waiting for everyone to sit down at the table before eating promotes good hosting and patience for your family members.
Politics
Just don’t. Within each family is always a few people who disagree and get into huge passive-aggressive “disagreements” (which really is just the nice way of saying arguments) at the table. Therefore, whenever you believe the conversation is being swayed that way, gear it back towards something way different such as talking about the Wicked movie or SOMETHING!!!
Relationships
I understand that family members may want to catch up with relatives about life and vice versa, but they shouldn’t be hounding over the dinner table asking about significant others. In actuality that may be a touchy subject to some people since they may not want to come out to their family or want to be disowned by having a partner.
Future Plans
As a senior I hope and pray this subject is not brought up in conversations. Though everyone wants to know about future plans, not everyone has a planner for the next year of their life! Whether they’re newlyweds being asked when they’re going to have kids or what profession they want to do for the rest of their life, decisions are a touchy subject. It’s difficult to make decisions (coming from an indecisive person). When people are being asked about their future plans, they’re most likely going to get anxiety or become anxious about future plans since it’s so unpredictable. For example, if a senior says they want to pursue a specific major and then later on ends up dropping out in order to pursue a different passion of theirs, judgment ensues from everyone pointed towards the senior.
All in all, you don’t want your bad conversation talking points to cause your family to hold a grudge against you until Christmas dinner. Don’t be that person!
