It’s official — much of America is hoping or planning not to see their families for the holidays. The revelations from the past year’s election dialogue have created an enormous divide and more pain than many want to — or know how to — process.
But our greatest opportunity and contribution to this country may be to commit to engaging with friends and family whose views you find infuriating, heart-breaking or even hateful. Here are a few possible ways to do it.
- Cook without conversation. Gather together in the kitchen and, for at least an hour, prepare your food without words. Instead, if you need help, touch a family member, gesture, smile to let them know you understand the request, smile to let them know they have been helpful. Reconnect around a kind, collective creation of the meal.
- Reframe rather than prohibit political conversation. I often say that no one is ever arguing about politics or religion. They are expressing their pain at being spoken to angrily, hurtfully, insultingly or condescendingly by someone who has access to their heart and who is supposed to be an unwavering source of support and love. The shift we must make is not about content but about the way we are communicating. Everyone’s commitment must be to make sure a loved one is heard rather than made to feel wrong, bad or stupid.
At the top of the meal, rather than insisting no one speak of the election, ask if everyone can say one sentence about how they feel about the outcome. It can only be an expression of their feeling not an indictment of anyone or anything else. Then have the family respond, “I love you, ____.” And go to the next person. If you are a religious family, say your prayers together after that.
- Ask for what you need from each other. Rather than concentrate on correcting the content of each other’s conversations, have each person state what they want and need to hear from each other. This might look like, “I need to hear that you support my marriage and my family. I am afraid for us, and I am asking that you speak up for us when people say or do harmful things.” People are more likely and able to respond to a request for specific kind behavior than to a criticism of unkind behavior.
- Try a “Secret Santa” approach to conversation. Have everyone draw the name of a family member or friend and speak and listen to each other for 2-3 minutes about how they feel about the election and the family’s/friend’s response. Then have each team member stand and speak for their partner to the rest of the group.
- Use this litmus test for language. If you wouldn’t say the exact statement at someone’s funeral, you cannot say it at Thanksgiving. This takes phrases like, “Grow up!” and “That’s because you’re an idiot” off of the table.
- Hold the hand of the person who is saying hurtful things. Don’t allow people you love to put up a wall. Even if no one will commit to kindness, you can. When someone says something hateful, clasp their had, let them finish, and then repeat what you are hearing. “I am hearing that you are very angry that a Black man was the president. Am I understanding correctly?” After demonstrating what you would cherish, ask if someone will hold your hand and hear your own pain and fears.
- Give humor a center seat. If you missed last year’s #thanksgivingwithblackfamilies Twitter explosion, that morphed into #thanksgivingwithlatinofamilies (also Hispanic fams), Asian families, Italians, Jewish fams, etc. and, finally, young White Twitter shutting down the initial racist trolling of the ethnic family threads with their own #thanksgivingwithwhitefamilies, read through whichever relates to your family and just laugh. I read them all and laughed and learned so much last year, and everyone at the very multicultural annual Tgiving party I attend was sharing their favorites. The best part for us was the balance between how much we all have in common versus how much we never knew about other cultures’ traditions for that holiday.
WARNING: some of the racist posts are still in the threads above, so be prepared. For the full chronology, when racists started posting hate in the cultural threads, young POC started a “clapback” thread of #thanksgivingwithwhitefamilies. Thanksgiving Day, young white Twitter took over that hashtag and won the Internet by simply making fun of their own families the same way other cultures were.
- Play this video at the top of the gathering. If you have Chromecast or AppleTV, put it up on a big screen. Know that it simply cannot get worse than this.
We are asking our country to have a conversation that we, ourselves, must learn to have before we can expect or demand it of others.
Please spend the holidays with your family or friends whose beliefs differ from yours.
Please openly request that everyone speak about differences with the intent of being understood not of hurting someone else. That is a skill we all are going to need to heal as a country.
Please share any tips or anecdotes of what worked for you in the comments.