Almost 2016 Things You Can Discuss At Thanksgiving Dinner to Avoid Discussing the 2016 Election
Don’t let the swamp seep into your celebration
Face it. It’s been a rough year for America. Not only are we now on the other side of a contentious and storied presidential election cycle, there was no barometer that correctly gauged the outcome. But now, it’s been a few weeks and we need to focus on ourselves and ours.
This is your friendly compass to guide you through the craggy cliffs of your kinsfolk convocation.
You’ll never convince them of your position and they won’t convince you. Don’t stir the pot of putrid sentiment if you don’t need to.
Some guiding principles are patience, attentiveness, and mindfulness as you read the below discussion items, specifically tailored to what you need now.
- How beautiful of day it is
- How beautiful of a day it is
- The shape of the clouds outside today
- How the weather’s been cooperating this year
- How the weather’s not been cooperating this year
- How great the Pats are doing this season
- How you’ve been good
- Whether the Red Sox or the Yankees are better
- How awful the Browns look this year
- Whether the Steelers will make the playoffs this year
- How you’ve been good
- How strong the Cavs look so far this year
- How awful the Suns have started this year
- Whether the Wizards will pull it out this year
- How you’ve been good
- Where can you put down this bag of ice
- Where can you plug in your slow cooker
- Where can you finish preparing the stuffing
- How you’ve been good
- How you forgot to bring your mixer
- How you remembered to bring the chips & salsa
- How you’ve been good
- Where you got that Hawaiian shirt
- Where you got that eggshell long-sleeved button-up blouse
- How you’ve been good
- Where you got those chino khaki slacks
- Where you got that high-waisted herringbone pencil skirt
- Where you got those fun socks with the little turkeys on them
- Where you got those black mid-calf boots
- Where your got her hair dyed
- Where you got those earrings
- Where you got that captain’s hat
- Where you got that Mad Hatter stovepipe
- Where you got that tiny cowboy hat
- Where you got that earth tone pashmina
- Where you got that scarf
- Where she got that beautiful pewter platter for the pie
- How you’ve been good
- The latest John Grisham book he’s currently reading
- How your cat’s doing after its elective eye surgery
- Why you didn’t bring your dog this year
- How your boyfriend’s sister is doing after her divorce
- How your girlfriend’s brother is doing after his divorce
- Whether the McClusky project finished up in Q3 as expected
- Your cousin’s dog’s old age
- Whether the big work presentation went well
- Your other cousin’s children’s young age
- Whether the Haverford deal ever closed
- Your aunt about the mobile home sales market
- How strong the Rockets look so far this year
- Your nephew how the 4th Grade is coming along
- Your 2nd cousin about her new step-mom
- How was the traffic driving into town
- How was the traffic driving out of town
- Where you got those sunglasses
- Ask if there were a lot of cars on the road
- How automatic windshield wipers works
- What kind of trees are in the backyard of my mom’s new house
- Whether Coca Cola or Pepsi is better
- Why dad locks his man-cave when company comes into town
- The status of your uncle’s 3rd novel
- How your mom’s new book is doing on Amazon right now
- Which type of social media posts are helping with book sales
- What is it like to go on a book tour
- How you’ve posted to Facebook about the book’s release
- How the Ben Franklin effect works
- What really is success
- Your sister’s dog
- Why your best friend from high school won’t be here this year
- How your high school best friend and his new wife are working out
- Where they went for their honeymoon
- How pretty Iceland looks
- Where you would go for a honeymoon
- How long you’d honeymoon for
- Advantages & disadvantages of taking your honeymoon immediately after the wedding versus waiting until an opportune moment in each others’ work schedules
- Iceland’s demographic makeup
- Björk
- The fact that no one else has ever listened to one of Björk’s songs
- One-hit wonders
- How Björk isn’t necessarily a one-hit wonder
- Examples of actual one hit wonders
- Music everyone has been listening to recently
- What Discover Weekly is
- Spotify
- How the Internet works
- Comparison of Spotify and Pandora
- Owning music versus streaming music
- How your niece has a vintage record player
- Whether your uncle is really going to give her all his vinyls of southern blues rock
- Whether Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd was better
- How much your aunt loves her Kindle
- Recent books
- Whether or not Girl on a Train is actually a good book
- How Girl on a Train is not just a movie
- How it’s possible that Girl on a Train and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are not by the same author
- Girls
- How no one really likes Lena Dunham
- Girl, Interrupted
- How Angelina Jolie was in that
- What IMDB is
- Where you got that cinnamon snickerdoodle recipe
- How everyone has apps nowadays
- Jennifer Aniston, for sure
- Why you’ve never created your own app
- What your major was in college
- Why you didn’t plan on teaching with your college major
- What kind of app you all would create if you knew how to code
- The viability of “being the Uber but for juices & smoothies”
- The viability of crowdsourced car ownership
- Self-driving cars
- How Teslas work
- How you like driving your Ford F-150
- How you’re not interested in buying some Scentsy candles from your cousin’s girlfriend
- What multi-level marketing is
- How you’re not sorry
- How you can get away driving a truck while also wearing Toms
- Who has the remote
- How crazy it was that the Cubs won the World Series
- How awful it was that the Indians lost
- How long had it been since either had won
- How much a Hershey’s candy bar cost the last time either were in a World Series
- How fiat currency works
- How time works
- Whether or not you liked Theory of Everything
- How similar Imitation Game & Theory of Everything are
- What the gold standard was
- The advantages of having a central bank
- How you have heard of Hamilton (careful now)
- How British a name like Benedict Cumberbatch is
- Whether Eddie Redmayne has been in anything else
- How stupid “Einstein” becomes synonymous with anything pertaining to “intelligence”
- What metonymy is
- Differences between metonymy, synecdoche, and metaphor
- How synecdoche is not a town in New York
- How your cousin’s thinking of Schenectady, New York
- Whether or not there are dictionary apps
- Charlie Kaufman’s other works
- How you *didn’t* get the ending of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind either
- How confusing Adaptation was
- Why Magnolia and Adaptation are different
- How Nicolas Cage does not really have a twin
- How there’s no “H” in “Nicolas”
- How Nicolas Cage is actually Italian
- Where is that noise coming from
- How Romance languages work
- Whether or not Nicolas Cage is related to Francis Ford Coppola
- How no one liked the 3rd Godfather
- Why that inclusion of The Vatican into the plotline made sense in terms of escalation but also created an overly byzantine story structure
- Difference between Latin-based languages and Greek-based languages
- Where “it’s all Greek to me” came from
- How that phrase also exists in Spanish
- What other phrases exists across different languages
- What a tonal language is
- What are words
- Spoken language’s essential purpose to the propagation of human civilization
- The benefits of bilingualism
- Whether or not a baby remembers their own birth
- How good of a baby your nephew was
- Babies
- Who’s had ‘em
- Why you don’t have babies
- Why you’d kill baby Hitler if given the chance
- How time travel works
- What the butterfly effect is
- What is chaos theory
- What Ashton Kutcher is up to now
- How Ashton got discovered modeling in a shopping mall
- Why you never go to the mall anymore either
- Why Punk’d was such a good show
- Why Punk’d wasn’t really that good of a show
- How no one watches MTV anymore
- How you barely remember MTV with music videos
- How does one actually become an angel investor for tech start-ups
- Whether or not Ashton Kutcher is smart
- How cool Uber is
- How you’ve been good
- Who left the back door open
- How cold it is today
- Thermodynamics (essentially)
- How air pressure works
- How ideal gas law works
- What it used to be like to hail a cab
- How old everyone feels
- Why your nephew needs to focus less on hatching Pidgeys in Pokemon Go
- What Pokemon means
- How you know that factoid
- How true Wikipedia usually is
- How Wikipedia works
- How Wikipedia works (again for your aunt’s sister)
- How no one remembers anything anymore
- What is memory
- The benefits of remembering
- The benefits of forgetting
- Whether it’s better to remember or to forget
- What is knowledge
- What is possible to be truly objective about
- The unreliability of eyewitness testimony
- Ayn Rand
- Twelve Angry Men
- Anything BUT Ayn Rand
- Henry Fonda’s best movies
- Anything BUT Ayn Rand (again)
- Why you’ve never seen Grapes of Wrath
- How it’s actually Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life
- Why It’s a Wonderful Life is a white people thing
- How you *do* know who Bing Crosby is
- The subtext of Baby It’s Cold Outside
- What rape culture is (fuck it)
- How Rosemary is George Clooney’s aunt, not mom
- How small Hollywood is
- Whether 2D or 3D animation is better
- Whether Pokemon or Digimon was better
- Objectivism
- How you don’t know why Pikachus are so hard to encounter
- Advantages of an Ultraball
- Difference between Team Instinct, Team Valor, & Team Mystic
- Whether Road Runner or Wile E. Coyote was more moral
- Relativism
- How you’ve been walking more recently
- All the weight you’ve lost
- All the weight you’re planning on gaining this holiday season
- Why there’s no “War on Christmas”
- How great the Raiders are doing this season
- The relativism of pagan holiday
- No, not that “relativism”
- How you’ve been good
- Cultural miscegenation
- Advantages of seeing “real people” face-to-face in public space
- Why babies are creepy
- How you already discussed baby Hitler
- What circularity is
- Where she got those french tips done
- What is morality
- Why baby Hitler would be the wrong target
- Who are you going to sit next to during dinner
- Where are the plates
- How baby Hitler would be wrong
- Predetermination
- Who you don’t want to sit with during dinner
- Free will
- How much you *do* like stuffing
- Where does cognition begin
- Westworld
- How human perception works
- How lenses work
- What is a mirror
- Who brought the sorghum-glazed sweet potatoes
- How strong the Bulls look so far this year
- How her girlfriend is feeling about her new promotion
- Where she got that green bean casserole recipe
- Who brought the pumpkin pie
- Where they got that rosemary-port cranberrry sauce recipe
- Where you got your eyebrows done
- Where is the cornbread
- Utensils?
- Where he got that caramelized onion galette recipe
- How strong the Spurs look so far this year
- Where you got that brussel sprouts gratin recipe
- Where you got that peach iPhone case
- Where he got that grape slab pie
- Where you got that apple pie recipe
- Where they got that jalapeño-green chili spoonbread recipe
- Where she got that apple crosata recipe
- Where you got that bluetooth speaker
- Where he got pear-thyme brined turkey recipe
- How awful the Timberwolves have started this year
- Where they got that toffee crunch cake
- Where she got that roasted acorn squash recipe
- Where you got that locally sourced honey
- Whether the Bills will make the playoffs this year
- Which seat is still available
- HBO programming
- How expensive cable television is
- How you’ve never seen The Sopranos
- How much Comcast sucks
- How her in-laws are feeling about their new marriage
- The lumpiness of the gravy
- Where you got those strappy gladiator sandals
- Could someone please pass the salt
- Emily Post
- Whether you’d rather fight a pirate or a ninja
- Space pirates or sea ninjas
- What is steampunk
- The moistness of the biscuits
- How her girlfriend is feeling about her new promotion
- Where you got that Vineyard Vines gingham flannel shirt
- How your phone always knows where you are
- Why a fresh snow is so good
- How much is sucks when you can’t get any bars
- How “bars” can mean “cell phone reception”
- How strong the Warriors look so far this year
- Whether anyone has any big trips planned for 2017
- Why night swimming is so good
- How your (former) stepdad’s been doing since the divorce
- Why the chicken crossed the road
- How you’ve never heard that one before
- How you’ve been good
- How internal combustion works
- How the scorpion could’ve done better by the frog
- What really is friendship
- How the farmer deals with the fox, the chicken, & the bag of feed
- How outcome bias works
- How much she likes her current stepmom’s new nose-job
- What kind of conversations they have together
- What is empathy
- Whether sweet potatoes are yams or yams, potatoes
- How often you’re sad for lacking a horticultural knowledge base
- What is horticulture
- How coffee sounds great
- That you’ve heard your uncle’s story about throwing the roman candles in a running thresher and the entire machine became engulfed in flames
- Letting your uncle get to the other side of the story
- Why ice cream with warmed apple pie is so good
- How outside sounds nice right now
- How you’ve been good
- Why swinging on a swing is so fun
- How your cousin won’t narc on you
- How gorgeous leaves are
- How gorgeous the clouds look now
- Whether the clouds are different than they were earlier
- How gorgeous the bench swing swings
- How everything’s beautiful
- How you’ve been alright
- Where you got that weed (Because that was good weed.)
- How everything’s alright
- How everything’s not
- How the family’s divided into football watchers and non-watchers
- How the TV speaks to one group
- How the other speaks to each other
- How stupid this is
- How you can’t even
- How you won’t
- Trump
