Every year, I get emails from strangers asking what they should say at their family’s Thanksgiving gathering if this or that issue comes up, if their conservative relative makes a crack about trans people, if the misdeeds of former reality show hosts are glossed over, if politics takes a starring role at the table over turkey and canned cranberry sauce.
Most of y’all didn’t ask for my advice, let alone invite me to your Thanksgiving meal, so please forgive the presumption of what I’m about to say.
Tomorrow, you’ll sit down with your family and friends over a nice dinner in the intended spirit of gratitude for what you have.
You might watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and some football games and the Charlie Brown special.
You might play board games with your loved ones and go back for seconds and thirds and inevitably unleash that top button of your pants late into the evening to relieve your stuffed belly and slip into a delicious coma on the couch in the living room while the kids run around.
These are all clearly blessings. But there are other, less-noticeable blessings, too.
The annoying relatives, the last-minute dinner snafus, the exasperating travel logistics, the bickering over inconsequential topics in pop culture, the scraped knees and banged heads of kids who have taken a spill, the arguments over who gets to sleep where and who does the dishes and will someone, please, for the love of all that’s good, tell so-and-so to not take more than 20 minutes in the shower when the rest of the extended family is waiting to use it, etc., etc., etc.
Believe it or not, all these things are blessings. All of them. It’s all worth it.
I know, I know, it can be aggravating when someone says that, as though family isn’t partly defined by being the space where you can be aggravated around people who are gonna love you anyway.
That’s true.
But what’s also true is that there are so many people in this country who will not be sitting down tomorrow with loved ones at a table full of food.
There are the folks working jobs in retail, of course. Give thanks for them. Be nice to them. Consider tipping them for saving the day when you’ve had a turkey disaster of some sort. They wish they were at home with their families instead of working a register and playing grocery therapist for a long line of frantic customers who are letting holiday stress get the better of them.
There are the folks working long shifts in hospitals and firehouses and police stations throughout the country because trauma and tragedy don’t care that it’s Thanksgiving and someone’s gotta do what needs to be done when the worst happens.
There are the women and men stationed at military bases around the world, many of them pulling an absolutely boring block of guard duty, maybe some tinsel and lights sparsely decorating their building — which can feel like its own sort of mockery, believe me — and wondering if their families have started dinner yet and what they’re talking about and if they’re missing a great laugh that’ll become an inside joke in the family for years to come.
Because you just had to be there to get it, and they weren’t. They missed it.
And, of course, there are the people who don’t have families. For whichever of many reasons, they won’t be sitting at a table with loved ones because the table itself doesn’t exist — or the seat wasn’t offered or wasn’t reachable at the tables that do exist.
Maybe all their loved ones have passed. Maybe they were disowned for being LGBTQ. Maybe they can’t afford to travel to see their family. Maybe they’re estranged from their families for all sorts of valid reasons.
There are tens of millions of folks in this country who wish they were spending tomorrow at a table with people who love them, and as a society, we largely don’t pay a whole lot of attention to these tens of millions of stories because it might obligate us to do something.
But many of these folks will spend tomorrow alone, certainly not around loved ones.
I’d like to believe that every family gathering will go out of their way to invite the lonely and estranged to warm tables. I’m sure many will. Maybe most of them. But definitely not every gathering.
That’s not meant to chide anyone, I promise. Life is a busy thing, especially during the holiday season, and it’s hard enough just to get all the pieces in place for the people you’re expecting.
This isn’t about prescribing guilt, which is pretty useless. Not the point.
No, I’m saying all this because when folks ask me what they should say at their Thanksgiving dinner, surrounded by loved ones, if things should come up and tempers are primed to flare and they want to know how to navigate it, I can’t help but feel, especially right now, the response is pretty obvious.
But Charlotte, you might be muttering as you read this, you don’t know my family.
You’re absolutely right. I don’t know your family. I have no idea what combination of countless factors are complicating tomorrow for you.
But I do know that something or someone brought you to that table. Despite everything, you have found yourself sitting with people who love you, perhaps in convoluting and exasperating ways, but love, nonetheless.
You made a choice to gather with family, but there’s another choice you’ll have, too.
When that less-than-pleasant relative intentionally muddies up what could otherwise be good vibes with their desire to provoke and troll and gloat and re-litigate recent events, you can choose to give them exactly what they want.
You can choose to get angry and resentful and match fire with fire and let the annoyance and exhaustion wash over you, which is, I guarantee you, the only thing wanted by someone who shows up to Thanksgiving ready to do battle instead of being grateful for having a family who loves them.
You can give them all that. They’ll be happier than a pig in slop that you’ve taken the bait and will be the character in an anecdote they’ll be thrilled to share at a later date with other sad folks who have a similarly cynical view on holiday gatherings.
Or you could go the other way. You could see through the obvious nonsense, the tragic nature of someone who sits down at a table of loved ones not to count their blessings but tries to find the best angle for making others uncomfortable and angry.
You could recognize how truly sad it is that a grown adult feels the need to do that and you could choose to simply ignore them and give attention where it’s due: the loved ones who came for joy and belonging, who cooked this wonderful dinner, who know, too, what’s important in that moment and what clearly isn’t.
If I were in your shoes, at your table, with your family, in that moment, I’d wanna say this:
“I’m thankful for all of you. I’m grateful to have a family and that we can be together today. I’m glad I have people who love me through thick and thin. I’m thankful I have this often overlooked aspect of my life that so many others don’t have.”
I’m not saying it’s easy. Far from it.
But I am saying that when everyone finishes up eating and leaves the table and moves on to other activities and makes warm memories with each other and travels home, they’ll long remember who came to make a pleasant experience for everyone else and who came to be a jackass who can’t read the room.
I promise you they will.
Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.
And the record: I’m thankful for all of you. Truly.
Charlotte Clymer is a writer and activist. She is the author of Charlotte's Web Thoughts, a blog on politics, religion, and culture where this essay first appeared.
