Various friends tell me of the horrors of Thanksgiving (or other family gatherings) with relatives who are politically stupid and stubborn. I never had this problem. My family didn't talk politics much and to the extent we did, we were all on roughly the same page. There was a period in the late sixties when I skewed much more Conservative than readers of this blog might ever imagine. Even then though, I had zero interest in discussing my views with my relatives and they had zero interest in discussing theirs with me.
For some reason, the dominant topic at the dinner table when a lot of us ate together was food. My father, his brother and his sister would argue about the way their mother cooked certain items as opposed to the way my mother had cooked comparable items upon which we were feasting. My mother's cooking usually came off well in the comparison but it still annoyed her a little that it was even being discussed…and discussed over and over.
Now, I avoid family dinners altogether. You can do that when you have almost no family left. My closest relative — David, author of this fine book — lives in Brooklyn with his peachy wife. Even if we were in the same state on some holiday, I don't think David and I disagree on much of anything.
Oh, yeah. I like some Woody Allen movies he doesn't and vice-versa. That's certainly not enough to ruin a meal.
As I've written here before, I had a very happy childhood with parents who yelled or quarreled about once every two years and never for long. I also had no siblings and have never for one second regretted that. Friends tell me how wonderful it was to have these brothers or those sisters and I don't doubt that for a moment. But I felt no void in my life because I did not and I was glad I didn't have to share my room, my comic books or my parents' affection.
By coincidence as I was composing this, I received an e-mail from someone asking if I had any tips about discussing politics with politically-different relatives at Thanksgiving. Well, I've never had to do that but, yes, I have a tip: Don't try it. It doesn't matter if your uncle thinks Donald Trump is a great man who will bring peace to the world by shutting up and/or nuking everyone who disagrees with him. It especially doesn't matter if your uncle resides in a state other than the few swing ones that will decide the 2016 Presidential Election…but it also doesn't matter because you're not going to change his mind. Just as he's not going to change yours.
So just remind him of that and ask him to pass the cranberry sauce. Happy Thanksgiving.