Congratulations! If you are reading this, you have physically survived a holiday this year! If you are not absconding to a remote location away from family and are determined to remain on speaking terms with your relatives during these times, here are some noncontroversial topics to preserve what is left of harmony at your. next holiday table, no matter where people are politically!
The Weather
It’s very important you stick to the current weather, not how it compares to past weather, and certainly not what it foretells about future weather. Just announce whatever is currently happening out the window at the given moment you bring it up! An example is: “Uncle Mark! It is forty one degrees.” Or: “That is a good point, Cousin Jason. Also, it is not raining.”
The Time
Fortunately it is always a certain time! If you’ve recently hurled your phone into the sea, a simple wrist watch is a great way to always have the given time at the ready. Should someone start loudly lecturing someone else about fragments of ancient Jewish pottery shards in southern Canaan, just turn your wrist slightly and say, for example, “In five minutes, it will be six o’clock!”
Numbers
Numbers are a classic and noncontroversial way to denote the amount of something. Examples of numbers you might hear are “240,” and “1,400,” and “tens of thousands,” and even, “countless.” Should the screaming escalate, look around the room for any object, count it, and tell your dining partner, “There are five people with glasses at the table and two people crying.”
The Shadow Spider
Casually interrupt the person who is explaining where “The Jews” should “go” with, “Sorry - Is that a shadow or a spider on your forehead?” When they reach to their forehead screaming, you’ve bought yourself a little time to just relax. When the person realizes there was no bug and shouts, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” Say, “Now there are three people crying.”
The Dog
If all else fails, do what people done for centuries to maintain a sense of kinship with those they resent: Project every feeling onto the animal in the room. Nothing gets you out of a Woodbridge Merlot rant about “The Squad” quite like saying the dog could use some air.
What if There is No Dog
Simple! Have a pack of cigarettes in your (front!) pocket. When things get headed, a simple “Just gotta step outside for one of my smokes,” will get you out of the room and have everyone saying, “I didn’t know she smoked.”
What if You Have Asthma
No dog and no smoking? I say use your respiratory weakness to your advantage and Just! Start! Choking! If you can’t convincingly fake an airway blockage, just jam a few pieces of meat gristle down the ol’ gullet and start gasping! The whole family coming together to save your life will restore your airway function and the general sense of camraderie!
What if You Are a Vegetarian
Come on. A little meat gristle won’t kill you. (Unless nobody knows the Heimlich! In which case, thrust your abdomen into the back of your chair until you vomit it out!)
The Television Show “Peaky Blinders”
For some reason everyone likes this.
Something big related to my work was in the news right before thanksgiving 2015. I successfully shifted every conversation people wanted to have with me about it into a conversation about the first season of Jessica Jones, which had recently dropped. By “successfully,” I mean people eventually got annoyed and stopped talking to me. Which I took as a win.
And I got to talk about a show I loved!
I will go here in my mind:
The Peace of Wild Things
BY Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.