Managing Californians at an Idaho Thanksgiving

First, lock up the good silver. Then put away the MAGA hats, move the gun cabinet, and don’t turn on Laura Ingraham. You can suck it up for a long weekend. Ask your guests to do the same, explain they don’t have to eat the turkey and offer avocado toast as an alternative to stuffing.

Talk About Nothing and Zip Your Lips

The adage is that we aren’t to talk politics during the gathering, but football may also be taboo for liberals who believe it bolsters the patriarchy. In the past, you didn’t miss much by slipping the Detroit Lions on TV, but now that the club is good, it’s a bigger sacrifice.

If you follow all these rules, you’ll be able to eat in silence. The entire weekend will be silent.

You’ll be seeing a lot of these advice columns before Thanksgiving, alongside the columns about the holiday being evil and celebrating gluttony and colonialism. The thing is, there’s nothing perfect about family gatherings.

Ignore the Uncouth Uncle

I had an uncle who liked to fart and tell dirty jokes at the table. Just to get a reaction. Another uncle drove a Cadillac convertible, dressed like a character in a mob movie, and once threatened to shoot another uncle during a heated dinnertime dispute. The threatened uncle could’ve crushed the belligerent one in his massive hands.

We talked about politics and football. A lot. We tolerated whining cousins and argued about football being better when Bobby Layne played. Several of my uncles met him at training camp when he joined the Steelers.