Dear Miss LARE:
I’m hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year for the extended family. It’s my turn. My family is seriously into politics. Sadly, they cover both sides of the spectrum and in the middle too. The Swiss faction I can deal with, but the far ends of the spectrum are what I worry about.
We’ve had fights to the point of family walking out of the house, calling people nasty names, and and arguments involving stupid conspiracies. One year it got so far out of hand my mother hand to put her foot down, and there ended up being a food fight.
I’m going through a rough patch myself right now, and I don’t want that kind of thing in my house. Plus, I hate politics anyway.
How do I keep it from happening?
Between the Left and Right
Dear Between the Left and Right,
I totally get your situation, believe me. Politics are never a fun thing to deal with, especially if it gets headed. I avoid it at all cost.
Here are my options for you:
#1 Cancel your house, and take dinner to a restaurant if it’s not too late for a reservation, or ship everyone off to your mom’s. Supply the food, but the venue gets changed.
#2 Tell every person who walks through your door in no way, shape, or form will political topics or current events be brought up. If it is, you will be kicked to the curb, immediately. End of discussion.
#3 If you aren’t strong enough to stand up to your family (we will need to work on that later), keep them too busy to start any talks. Split the factions up. One helps you with dinner while the other is watching a family favorite movie. Then switch when it’s time to clean up. Prepare a list of safe topics in advance, get a sibling or your mom on your side, and every time a forbidden topic comes up talk over them to veer the conversation in a new direction. Have a set of games on standby that doesn’t leave time for chatter, you should be able to find most of these at any department store or bookstore.
- Yatzee
- An escape room game
- Poker
- Cards Against Humanity
- A mystery party game
- Uno
- Any trivia game with everyone paired up (hopefully with the same party views)
- Family Feud
- Rock Paper Scissors tournament if all else fails
Good luck!
Miss LARE