Ways to Ruin Your Thanksgiving Dinner

(100% money back guaranteed advice)

No, I’m not talking about cooking the turkey or the ham too long.

Most people don’t need much advice on that (except me). Our once-feathered and once-furred friends are most likely to emerge from our ovens on time, tenderly and properly cooked.

I’m talking about talking. Conversation. Words.

No. 1: Talk politics.

If you are absolutely sworn-to-high-heaven-dead-set on ruining a Thanksgiving dinner, perhaps there is no more tried and proven way to do so than to simply bring up politics.

I know. I know. In your own mind you are absolutely inerrantly “right” about your view of politics and Uncle Bob’s view is horribly and plainly “wrong.” But a venerable family gathering is neither the time nor the place to promote your supposed intellectual superiority. So let Uncle Bob be “wrong.” For the sake of familial love, it’s more than worth it. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the smart thing to do. It’s the loving thing to do. So don’t go there.

No. 2: Comment on someone’s weight.

“Oh, Cousin Tildy, have you lost weight?” This is often a “lose-lose” situation. Even if you’re complimenting Cousin Tildy for “losing” some weight, there is always Cousin Betty standing by, listening intently, who is now seething with jealousy because she seems to have swallowed a whole turkey since last Thanksgiving. Best thing you can do? “You look really good, Cousin Betty!” True, she might detect a glimmer of white lie in your eye, but what else are you gonna say? — “Cousin Betty, you’d look pretty even if you swallowed a whole turkey?”