How To Survive Thanksgiving Dinner With Your Entire Family

If we asked you to picture your Thanksgiving, would you conjure up an image of a happy family enjoying a moist turkey in a joyous celebration of love? Or would you picture a version of Hell featuring family dramas, overwhelming anxiety, and fighting over the television? If it's the latter, fear not! We're here to tell you that it doesn't have to be this way. Because while you may not be able to control how certain toxic family members behave, there are some things you can do to prepare for a stress-free Thanksgiving.

1. Play a game

Part of the stress of attending a family gathering is worrying about what to do about other people's controversial opinions. And a way of avoiding another pitfall conversation with your least favorite "uncle" is to, well, not talk to people at all. Instead, you could just play a game! You should probably go for something inoffensive that doesn't involve drinking or personal questions. How about Charades or Pictionary?

2. Eat what you like

Thanksgiving is about a lot of different things — and one that people like to talk about a lot is food. Is the turkey cooked right? Are we having yams or sweet potatoes? Who’s making the pumpkin pie? And did you know that Americans eat anywhere from 3,000 to 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving, according to the Calorie Control Council? But all of this diet talk can make eating somewhat less fun — and even anxiety-inducing for some. To avoid this, remind yourself and others that it's okay to eat a little more or less than usual. It is just one day out of the year, after all.

3. Make a new normal

The prospect of staving off Thanksgiving stress by compiling lists of neutral conversation topics, researching your guests, setting boundaries, and giving yourself “me-time” could actually be making you feel the anxiety you’re trying to avoid. In which case, why not just do something different? Have dinner with friends, or volunteer at a shelter, or go on a solo vacation. Start your own holiday tradition!

4. You don’t have to go home at all

Remember, there’s no reason for you to go visit your family for Thanksgiving if that’s not what you want to do. The decision to stay away might make your mom angry — but that doesn’t mean you should be sad, too. “It’s a radical thought that someone else could be upset and you can be as happy as you were before they got upset,” psychologist Dr. Lindsay Gibson told British newspaper The Guardian in 2021.

5. Stand by your decision to skip Thanksgiving

“The healthy and loving people in your family system can and should respect your boundaries,” clinical psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula informed The Guardian. And if you think some members of your family will react badly to your choice to not go home for Thanksgiving, ask a trusted friend or loved one to be your screener. They can protect you from any toxic responses and leave you to enjoy the day as it suits you best.

6. Take the conversational lead

The key to avoiding unwanted topics of conversation is to arrive home with a bunch of vanilla questions designed to spark neutral discussions. An obvious one, for example, is prompting people to talk about their favorite Thanksgiving dishes. Or maybe what people have been watching on TV lately. And if all else fails, family therapist Kristen Harrington simply told website Refinery 29, “Ask them about themselves. Then they may forget to be nasty.”

7. Remember your feelings are valid, too

Many of us will still choose to spend the holidays with our families, of course. But if you know that arguments are likely to happen, you should try your best to remember that it’s okay for you to have your own thoughts and opinions. Dr. Gibson recommended telling yourself, “This person is not more important than me. I am just as important as they are.”

8. Let people off the hook — for one day

You can’t predict when someone is going to say something with which you don’t agree — or who is going to say it. But you can try to control the way you respond to these comments. Bare in mind that an argument over the Thanksgiving dinner table is very unlikely to make anybody change their minds about, say, politics or vaccines. So if you just want to get through Thanksgiving without a fight, maybe don’t respond to triggering remarks for the time being. Save it for a more appropriate arena.

9. Figure out what pushes your buttons

You know the members of your family almost as well as you know yourself — and you can use this knowledge to your advantage. So before you even get home, figure out who is likely to make you lose your temper and what they are likely to say. That way, you can avoid talking about certain parts of your life with these problematic family members.

10. Give yourself a break

"Do whatever you can to step out of that normal cycle you get stuck in when you go home," family therapist Moraya Seeger DeGeare advised Refinery 29. So even though it can be tempting to be with your loved ones 24/7, it could be better for your mental wellbeing to schedule some alone time. Go for a walk, go get some coffee, or even just enjoy an indulgent soak in the tub. Your body and mind will thank you later.

11. Forgive and forget

We understand, of course, if comments about important topics do eventually descend into shouting arguments. A holiday gathering will often find family members falling into their childhood roles, after all. But if this does happen, despite all your best intentions, it’s important not to beat yourself up about it. Everybody has had a rough couple of years — and adding guilt into the equation is not going to help anyone.

12. Go for a smaller gathering

Before you agree to attend a Thanksgiving or holiday gathering, it could be a good idea to figure out who else is going to be there. Is this an extended family party, or is it limited to immediate family only? And once you know that, you can decide whether a larger gathering is really what you want from your Thanksgiving. A smaller dinner could prove less stressful and less likely to provoke arguments.

13. Set some boundaries

Dr. Nicole Washington — a therapist — wrote in Newsweek magazine in 2020 that many of her patients have “implemented a ‘no political talk’ rule” at Thanksgiving. You can even get ahead of the game by messaging family members about this rule before the big day. That way, if things seem like they’re going to stray into unwanted territory, you can refer them all back to this conversational barrier and move back onto safer ground.

14. Be clear about the rules of engagement

You might belong to a family that is destined to have an argument during a holiday dinner. In this case, you can still try to take some control of these tricky conversations. For example, you could get everybody to agree on the shape that debates should take. Obvious rules should include no insults and no swearing. But you could also insist on people taking turns to speak, or carefully considering their responses before they talk.

15. Take care of yourself

You don’t need to bend over backwards to make sure everybody else is happy during the holidays. You should also make some room for yourself. At some point during Thanksgiving, then, go ahead and treat yourself. It could be making yourself a favorite breakfast or buying a longed-for gift — it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, you’ll hopefully find that this tiny piece of self-care can raise your spirits infinitely.

16. Take care of someone else

If you're worried that things might go sideways at your own Thanksgiving, you could try to get out of your own head by doing something special for someone else. You could call that person to whom you haven’t spoken for months. You could offer baked goods to a neighbor. It needn't be a big gesture or a life-changing gift — even the smallest note could help someone out and do yourself a good turn, too.

17. Remember the meaning of Thanksgiving

When Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official holiday in 1863 he declared that his “fellow citizens” should use the day to give “praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” Today, of course, we appreciate that not every American has the same relationship with religion — but it’s still worth considering Honest Abe’s words on Thanksgiving. So if you find yourself overwhelmed on the day, take a moment to reflect and be thankful for everything going right in your life. It may help to reset your mind.

18. Remember it’s okay to be sad

Self-care can also mean reminding yourself that you don’t have to be happy on the holidays. There could be pressure from family members or even society to make these events the best ever, but it’s simply not true for everyone. If you’re grieving for a lost loved one or you’re sad you can’t be at home or if you’ve had a tough year, it’s okay to be upset. Don’t make things worse by forcing yourself to feel differently.

19. Do your homework

Use Facebook to your advantage this holiday season. If you think your guests for your holiday gathering this year could be problematic, check out their Facebook feeds ahead of the main event. Their activities on social media will give you big clues about what has been happening in their lives as well as what their interests are. You can then use this information to ask big questions about their years — while avoiding any potentially thorny topics.

20. Keep Adele handy

If all else fails, there’s always Adele. Remember that Saturday Night Live sketch from 2015 where a bickering family is only brought together via the soaring melody of “Hello” by Adele? This year, that could be you and yours! The singer-songwriter has released another album since then, too, so there’s plenty of music to catch up on — and sing along to together.

21. Impress with Thanksgiving trivia

When in doubt, make sure you have some Thanksgiving-related facts in your back pocket. If you need to impress that hard-to-please relative, want to keep the mood calm and light, or just need to change the conversation stat, whip out some obscure knowledge about the Pilgrims. Most people don't actually realize that most of what we learn in school about Thanksgiving is completely false. Your family will be impressed!

The first Thanksgiving didn't happen when you think

Looking back in history, we can track the idea of having a special day of Thanksgiving to the Pilgrims who settled in America from England in the early 17th century. But the first Thanksgiving on record celebrated by those Puritans, whom we often call Pilgrims, wasn't in Massachusetts, but in Virginia — and it didn't happen in 1621.

A totally different month and year

Led by Captain John Woodlief, 38 men landed at Berkeley Hundred in Virginia’s Charles City County in December 1619. On the very day they arrived, they gave thanks to God as their original charter drawn up in London had stipulated they should. The charter also said that the anniversary of that day should be observed as a time for giving thanks to God in future years.

Not taught in schools

Now, that story about the first Thanksgiving in Virginia in 1619 might come as something of a surprise. It is not the familiar tale of the First Thanksgiving you almost certainly learned about in elementary school. The commonly accepted First Thanksgiving actually happened nearly two years later and in a different location.

Establishing Plymouth

Most of what we now celebrate as Thanksgiving is based on events at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts in 1621. And that festival, held in the fall, did not celebrate a safe landing but rather a successful harvest. It was in 1620 that the Pilgrims arrived aboard the Mayflower off the shores of the New World and established the Plymouth Colony.

Exploring the New World

After their arrival on Virginian shores, things did not go well for the Pilgrims. During December 1620, the Mayflower sailed along the coast, anchoring at various points and sending parties ashore to explore the wilderness. They found an abandoned Native American settlement and were attacked by some of the indigenous peoples.

The harsh winter

Eventually, towards the end of December 1620, the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth. They established a town for the 19 families and the various single men who had traveled on the Mayflower. And this was when the Pilgrims suffered the most from fatal diseases. Around half of the group died during that first winter, weakened by the rigors of their transatlantic crossing and probably finished off by a combination of pneumonia and scurvy.

A gruesome discovery

In fact, the site that the Pilgrims had chosen to build on had previously been occupied by the Patuxet tribe, members of the wider Wampanoag people. However, a plague – probably smallpox – had wiped out all of the inhabitants of the Patuxet village three years earlier. This had so devastated the tribe that the Pilgrims made the gruesome discovery of unburied bodies.

A few survivors

After their dreadful winter, things began to improve for the Pilgrims. They planted corn and other crops and the fall of 1621 harvest was a success. A Native American they knew as Squanto greatly helped the settlers in their endeavors. Squanto was said to be the last survivor of the Patuxet tribe.

Squanto to the rescue

Squanto could speak some English and he was able to teach the Pilgrims how to get the best out of the land previously cultivated by the Patuxet villagers. He taught them survival skills, such as how to catch eels, and even acted as an interpreter between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans of the region.

Native Americans saved their lives

Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag people, also came to the aid of the new settlers. In March 1621 the chief and the Pilgrims agreed that neither side would attack the other. Massasoit also gave the English settlers food as their supplies ran out. Some say that they could not have survived until their first harvest without the help of Squanto and Massasoit.

They were eager to celebrate

Clearly, 1621 was a grim year for the Pilgrims, with the trials of the Atlantic voyage from Europe and the disease and death that followed their arrival at Plymouth. So it’s little wonder that they were keen to celebrate the success of their first harvest. And to do so, they combined religious observance with a sumptuous feast.

Too good to be true

Unlike today's celebrations, the First Thanksgiving went on for three full days! Massasoit joined the Pilgrim’s party with approximately 90 of his men. And as the traditional story goes, the English Puritans and the Native American Wampanoag people were happy to celebrate and break bread together. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Today's Thanksgiving

That's because it was too good to be true. Still, the picture of a united group of people feasting together and thanking the Lord for a good harvest is what today's holiday is based on. Over the years, it has transformed into more of a family event than a patriotic observance. Nowadays, Thanksgiving is centered around a lavish dinner with a large turkey at the heart of the feast.

It's all about food

If the First Thanksgiving and modern Thanksgivings have anything in common, it's food. As well as the turkey, a contemporary American Thanksgiving dinner generally includes sweetcorn, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. It’s said that Americans consume more food on the day of Thanksgiving that at any other time during the year.

Shaky history

But besides the happy feasting, much of what we think we know about the history of Thanksgiving is based on shaky history, if not outright fabrication. Let’s start with Squanto, the friendly Native American who did so much to help the Pilgrims. The true story of his life makes us question the accuracy of the Thanksgiving story we've heard since childhood.

A walking mystery

The fact is, we know virtually nothing about Squanto’s early life. His birth date is generally given as roughly 1585, but that could be out by a decade in either direction. We do know that his proper name was actually Tisquantum and that he was a member of the Patuxet tribe. And we can surmise that his first contact with Europeans was hardly a happy affair from his point of view.

Tricked

Tisquantum’s story starts in 1614 when an English trader called Thomas Hunt sailed into Patuxet Harbor with the apparent aim of buying fur from the people of Patuxet village. Somehow, he tricked 20 of the villagers into coming aboard his ship. Once he had them there, he imprisoned all of them. One of their number was the unfortunate Tisquantum.

Sold into slavery

Kidnapping Native Americans was a terribly frequent practice among the early explorers of America as well as those who traveled there for trade. Hunt took his captives across the Atlantic to the port of Malaga on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. There Tisquantum and the other Patuxet people were sold into slavery. No doubt Hunt made a good profit on the deal.

Tisquantum's escape

Unsurprisingly, when monks bought Tisquantum and some of his companions, they immediately tried to indoctrinate the Native Americans into the Christian faith. Perhaps their cheap labor was also attractive. Somehow, Tisquantum escaped the monks, or was perhaps released by them. In any case, he found his way from Spain to England. Once there, he is believed to have lived in London with one John Slany.

So much is unknown

Slany was a prosperous shipbuilder and merchant and it was he who is said to have taught Tisquantum the English language. Since Slany had an interest in a scheme to colonize Newfoundland, perhaps he thought that Tisquantum might be of service to him at some point. Or perhaps he was just a good man. We have no way of knowing.

The lone survivor

Whatever the truth of Slany’s motives, Tisquantum traveled back across the Atlantic and was in Newfoundland in 1618. From there he journeyed to his homeland and his village of Patuxet. But when he got there, the entire village had been wiped out by a plague. Tisquantum was now the last of the Patuxet.

No love lost

So Tisquantum, given the treatment that he had suffered at their hands, had very little reason to love the Pilgrims. He had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. His people had been wiped out, very likely by disease introduced by the settlers to which the Native Americans had no resistance. Yet he proved himself invaluable to the folks of Plymouth Plantation.

Introducing Samoset

Tisquantum first met the Pilgrims through another Native American, Samoset. This Samoset had been the first Native American with whom the Plymouth settlers had made friendly relations. It seems that this Samoset was quite a character. In an article in The Smithsonian magazine, author Charles C. Mann described how the Native American introduced himself to the Pilgrims.

Samoset spoke English

Mann described the first meeting between Samoset and the Pilgrims. “On March 17, 1621, Samoset had walked unaccompanied and unarmed into the circle of rude huts in which the British were living. The colonists saw a robust, erect-postured man wearing only a loincloth; his straight black hair was shaved in front but flowed down his shoulders behind. To their amazement, this almost naked man greeted them in broken but understandable English.”

He lived alongside the Pilgrims

We can only imagine how astonished the settlers were to meet someone in this alien world who could speak their language. And it seems that Tisquantum was far more fluent than Samoset and Massasoit. The colony’s governor, William Bradford, appointed Tisquantum as a kind of liaison officer because of his good command of English. Tisquantum actually ended up living with the Pilgrims.

Shocking parallels

Tisquantum once again lived on the ancestral land of his Patuxet people, except this time, he was living alongside his people's killers. It must have been strange for him, acting as a liaison for the people who wiped out everything he'd ever known. Nevertheless, as we saw earlier, his help with cultivation may well have saved the Pilgrims from starvation.

Two versions of events

That brings us back to the Plymouth Pilgrims’ 1621 Thanksgiving celebration. Our precise knowledge about the event is really rather limited. Even the date is unsure. As best we know it was sometime between late September and early November. We do have two contemporary accounts from Pilgrims, one from the governor, Bradford, the other from Edward Winslow.

"All things in good plenty"

In his Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647 Bradford wrote, “They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty.” So it seems that the Pilgrims were indeed well stocked up for a celebration.

The fruits of their labor

Winslow described preparations for the feast in his aptly-named publication, A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation Settled at Plimoth in New England. “Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor,” Winslow wrote.

Coming together to feast

Winslow went on to outline the events of the Thanksgiving festival, including Massasoit's role. “..their greatest king Massasoit, with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.”

Not on the menu

As you’ll have noticed, there’s not a single mention of turkey. It’s true that there were plenty of wild turkeys around the Plymouth Colony, but there are no mentions in contemporary accounts of roast turkey being served. And the settlers had no flour or butter, so they couldn’t have baked pies. What’s more, sweet potatoes were unknown in those parts back then. So many modern Thanksgiving staples were definitely not on the menu!

Not so friendly

Here are some truths: Massasoit, the Wampanoag chief we met earlier, really did attend the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving, and he really did bring along 90 of his men. It's widely accepted that the Pilgrims happily invited them to join their feast. But just because it's widely accepted doesn't mean that it's true! It seems that the Thanksgiving encounter between Massasoit’s men and the Pilgrims was a little less friendly than tradition would have us believe.

A tense Thanksgiving dinner

In reality those men that arrived at the Pilgrim’s settlement were a 90-strong band of warriors, and the Pilgrims didn't exactly welcome them with open arms. Just to be on the safe side, the settlers’ militia gave a kind of parade and fired their weapons into the air. This show of strength seems to have done the trick, since there was no violence at the festival. But it sounds like the dinner must have been rather more tense than tradition suggests.

Fact and fiction

So it’s fair to say that the picture of peace and goodwill painted by history books doesn’t quite tell the whole story. At a wider level, the first Thanksgiving can be viewed as a bad omen for the Wampanoag people. As we saw earlier, Massasoit had signed a treaty with the English in which they mutually agreed not to attack one another.

Warring tribes

In truth, it’s probable that Massasoit was motivated by more than just natural friendliness in signing that treaty. Conflict with another Native American people, the Narragansett, who had long been enemies, also came into the picture. The Wampanoag had been devastated by the diseases brought to them by the Europeans and their weakness meant they were in danger of being overwhelmed by the neighboring Narragansett.

A strategic alliance

But by making peace with the Plymouth settlers, Massasoit was able to use this alliance to help protect his people from the Narragansett. And in the short term, this proved to be a successful strategy. But part of the agreement included the Wampanoag allowing the Pilgrims to settle and stay as long as they liked in the land of the Wampanoag.

A bad omen

And the stability this agreement gave the settlers allowed them to flourish. And their success, it can be argued, was a major factor in the large influx of settlers from Britain in the following period. And as the years went by, the Wampanoag and the other Native American peoples of the region were increasingly marginalized.

No reason to celebrate

So that first Thanksgiving was hardly an occasion to celebrate from the point of view of the Wampanoag and other Native American peoples. In fact, it turns out that much of what we think we know about that first Thanksgiving feast is a product of the 19th century, not the 17th!

No peace and harmony here

It wasn’t until 1863 that Abraham Lincoln declared the first official Thanksgiving Day, and that was to celebrate Unionist Civil War victories. Plus some historians say the very first Thanksgiving was in 1637 to mark the settlers’ victory over the Pequot Native Americans – in which case, it’s not quite the festival of peace and harmony of popular belief!