We’re thrilled to announce our latest venture: The Family Dinner Project Podcast! In each of our 30-minute episodes, Content Manager Bri DeRosa and Executive Director Dr. Anne Fishel will talk through tough topics related to family meals. Pull up a chair and grab a plate — we’re serving up real talk about family dinner! You can get caught up on older episodes here. 

In this episode, Bri and Annie talk about the consequences of the 2024 US Presidential Election on family Thanksgiving and holiday dinner plans. Whether families are planning to spend the day together and try not to talk about politics at all, or are finding themselves in the midst of rupture and canceled plans, there are feelings to sort through and ways to make the day easier for everyone.

Bri and Annie discuss the potential grief of family estrangement; how to keep things polite and positive if there are guests at the table who don’t share political views; and strategies for keeping the tension low at a very difficult time. They offer examples to help families plan new and different celebrations if they’re not joining the traditional Thanksgiving table this year, and ideas for managing compromise if you’re a “small-dose” family or want to see some people, but not others. They talk about navigating hurt feelings, canceled invitations, and setting ground rules for your own celebrations. The episode ends with suggestions for choosing foods this year — will you go traditional or unique? — as well as games and conversation resources that could help keep the peace, like Holiday Would You Rather?, The Hat Game, a Thanksgiving Storytelling prompt, and questions about resilience that may resonate this year.

Episode Transcript:

Bri DeRosa: Welcome back to the family dinner project podcast. I’m Bri DeRosa, and joining me as always is Dr. Anne Fishel.

Anne Fishel: Great to be here. Thank you, Bri. 

Bri DeRosa: Thank you, Annie. I’m so glad to be sitting down with you today to talk about this because today, friends, Annie and I are going to talk about a topic that seems to be on a lot of people’s minds right now, which is what to do this holiday season about the politics. 

I want to start the conversation right off the bat by saying that Annie and I certainly have our own political opinions. The two of us actually tend to align, I think, on most things, which is handy and helpful, but this is not about our politics, this is not about our opinions, this is not about taking sides or being about red or blue or one political opinion over another.

Where we sit today and where we’d like to go with this conversation is there are people– regardless of how they think and how they voted– there are people across this country right now who are having a lot of feelings and a lot of complicated, painful feelings about the upcoming holidays. They may feel that they are not welcome at their family tables. They may feel that family members they value don’t want to come and see them. They may feel that the entire exercise of getting everyone together to try to enjoy a holiday meal is something that’s suddenly kind of fraught with peril and doesn’t seem like it’s going to be the comforting and joyful exercise that has always been.

So, that’s where we’re going today, friends. We’re going to talk about what to do with those feelings, how to make some of these decisions. How you might find some common ground with your family, whether you eat together this year or not. And just kind of provide a little bit of, I hope, comfort and maybe a small roadmap forward.

So, Annie, I want to kick it off by asking you the, the big question, which is that — this one’s so hard to answer, I think, but we’ve been talking about politics at the holidays, especially Thanksgiving, since… at least for the past eight years. I think the first time we really dug into it on our website was around like 2016, but we keep talking about it because I feel like it keeps coming back, becoming a bigger topic. What do we think is is going on here? Why is this something that continues to invade our consciousness and and why is it getting worse? 

Anne Fishel: Well, I’m a psychologist, not a political scientist. So, let me just start with that caveat.

As if we needed any more confirmatory evidence that things have gotten hotter, there was a survey done by the American Psychological Association that found that 50 percent of Americans feel that the tension around political conflicts is so hot that they are avoiding a lot of people in their lives. Which is very sad, but I think we’re all feeling that.

And I think it’s, it’s really too bad that Thanksgiving comes so close upon the heels of an election when, you know, our feelings are at still so raw. So there’s that. And then, you know, I think ironically, family is the one place where we still end up interacting with people who have very different political views, beliefs and affiliations. You know, in the workplace, just like you and I, you know, we’re pretty closely aligned. When we go to social media, the algorithms feed us information that confirms our political ideas. The family is sort of the, the wild West of differences, and, you know, it’s where a lot of us first encountered somebody who had a different religion, or came from a different country, or we came to love somebody who was gay or trans. And I think that’s true with, with political ideas too. It’s sort of the, the melting pot. 

I think it’s there’s a lot of heat, just when the only thing we want running hot are our sweet potatoes at the dining table. Things have never been, I don’t know, never been hotter. As you said, we’ve been through some seismic, difficult times before at Thanksgiving. 

Bri DeRosa: I, I really appreciate that perspective and I, I want to just lean into it for a minute as you’re talking about the fact that, you know, family is kind of this interesting sort of crucible for encountering people who we don’t, you know, possibly don’t see all the time. Right? 

There’s also this, this question in my mind of kind of the repeated exposure. You know, in 2016, maybe you would go see the family for Thanksgiving and Uncle Bob was that guy you saw once a year who had the, the sort of distasteful opinion, right? Or Aunt Sue, who would always say that thing that set your teeth on edge, but you could kind of get past it.

You know but as people, as, as frustrations have grown, as challenges have grown, I feel like people’s opinions have also grown on, on all sides of the spectrum, right? Everybody’s got bigger and bigger thoughts, opinions, frustrations, and feelings and suddenly, it feels like, gosh, you know, that once a year, every year of having to deal with Uncle Bob’s ever growing opinions or Aunt Sue’s ever more obnoxious expression of her things, it just kind of feels like, you know, a serial wound that gets opened, right? It’s like lemon juice in the paper cut every year, and, and that suddenly, over time, is compounding in a way. Like we’re not able to shake it off maybe as much as, as we used to. 

That’s how it feels to me and I’m seeing that play out a lot of people that they just can no longer get past the, the once a year niceties. They just can’t muster it anymore. I want to say it’s a shame. And it is. But it’s also, I think, maybe, for some people, it’s maybe an opportunity. There are times when we maybe need to take a break. And it doesn’t have to be a forever break. And this might be that opportunity.

Anne Fishel: Right. It might be. I mean, I think there are a lot of ways this can go, but yes, I think we did this, a lot of us did this during the pandemic. We took a sabbatical. Many of us had the experience in 2020 of doing things very differently and rethinking Thanksgiving, which, which rituals really meant something to us, which ones we hold on to, which ones did we want to discard and not even bring back once we did, could gather together. 

So we’ve had a collective experience as a nation of pressing the pause button. And that may be a solution for families who feel that it’s just too charged this year to get together. But I think there’s, there are other ways it might go, even if you’re in a family where there are political differences, or if you’re in a family where you’re not sure If they’re going to be a lot of political tensions around your table and, and I’m, I’m thinking about that one of, of not really knowing what you’re hosting, what you’re getting into and thinking that there could be some preemptive moves that you make.

Like, you might send out an email ahead of time and say, I just, you know, I think we’re all feeling about as raw as an uncooked turkey this Thanksgiving. So could we could we focus on things like what it’s like, you know, the things that we’re grateful to be part of this family, things that we’re looking forward to in the coming year, and maybe keep politics off the table this year?

Bri DeRosa: My husband and I actually came to that decision for our own Thanksgiving last night.

We’re hosting a large number of family and we’re pretty sure that there are probably some differences. And we did, after talking about it for a while, we did decide last night that we’d like to go that route. Ordinarily we are a very like, Hey, let’s, our, our friends, Juliana and Tai at the Resilience Project would say “making things talk aboutable.” We are usually a make it talk aboutable family, but this year it feels a little bit like it could really spoil the soup, so to speak. 

So we, you know, we’re going to put that in the hands of– there’s one family member who we can trust to kind of help carry the word. So my husband’s going to have a conversation, you know, going to call that person and say, listen let’s, we’re going to keep the politics completely off the table this year. We’re going to ask everybody to respect that. And we decided we’re actually going to choose some of the conversation and game resources from our website and just have them available, in case people can’t quite keep their mouths shut on the politics, they just feel compelled to say the thing and something gets started. We’ll have some way to redirect. 

Anne Fishel: So I love that. I love that sort of having some things up your sleeve, some games and conversation starters, maybe a jar on the table with some like slips of paper with conversation, funny conversation starters or, and I think there are other things that a host could do, like in between courses to say, why don’t we switch seats? You know, just to give everybody a chance, particularly at a big gathering, let’s give everybody a chance to talk to somebody new or somebody they haven’t talked to during this holiday meal. Which is, you know, a way to interrupt some steamy conversations that might be going on. 

Bri DeRosa: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a really, that’s also really well, well said, right?

Because there’s, you can always kind of corral people in ways that if you see something happening, you know, Oh, okay. Could you help me in the kitchen? Hang on, I need, I need somebody to carry the sweet potatoes, right? There’s always some way to, to kind of defuse the situation if you’ve planned for it.

And you know, one other thing that one of my teenagers suggested was having some card games or board games available in the other room for like the cousins to go play, right? If there’s, there’s potential that there may be some tension amongst the cousins, some of the younger folks who maybe believe differently from one another. And my son was like, you know, if we all just go play, you know, whatever the game is together, I think it’ll go a long way towards just keeping the peace. 

So we’re going to do that too, you know, but I, I threw this question out actually on my own personal social media. I asked my friends and family to, you know, if they’re, if they felt that politics was having an impact this year on their family holiday plans, how were they feeling about it? What were they planning to do? And, and there’s a whole range of responses, right? 

I mean, some people said they are drawing the, the big line in the sand and staying home because they don’t feel welcomed or they don’t feel safe. And then others are saying, you know, I’m going, but I feel really nervous because there’s a history of escalation regardless of the level of drama. And this year brings a lot of drama. And then, and then I’ve got friends who are saying, you know, I know that my family believes differently from me. I know that I’m going to be an outlier at that table. And I’m just trying to remember that I love my family and that I’m going to try to keep my mouth shut.

And I’m wondering, in families who aren’t making the pact, like we are…. 

Anne Fishel: Right. 

Bri DeRosa: And where this tension might erupt, and, you know, my, my friends who are saying, like, I’m just gonna try to, like, live into, breathe into, I love you, I love you, I love you, I don’t agree with you, I’m gonna shove my mouth full of stuffing, and not be able to respond.

That feels like a very mature, healthy, high road way to go. Is that really a healthy dynamic? How else might people handle that, or how might somebody who plans to handle it that way, how might they take care of themselves on that day?

Anne Fishel: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, one size doesn’t fit all. Surely. I think there’s some families who might feel, wow, this is really an opportunity to be curious.

Like, I don’t get it, how Aunt Sue voted so differently from the rest of the family, and I would like to understand better because the country is so divided and here’s an opportunity to learn something. And I’m going to use Thanksgiving. You know, if it, if it goes that way, I’m going to embrace it. And I’m going to say, tell me what motivated you to vote the way you did, I want to understand better because I really don’t. And I, you know, maybe you’d like to hear why I voted the way I did. And maybe we could talk about that a little and agree not to name call or to, you know, sort of press each other’s buttons, but really just to listen as respectfully as we can, and maybe we’ll find some, you know, common ground.

Maybe you know, we’ll both agree that we think corporations have too much power in this country, or we both believe that families need need more resources, that they’re really struggling at the supermarket. So, you know, I’d like to, I’d like to lean in, and if it gets to be too hot well, maybe we’ll agree to, to press the pause button and go get another piece of pie.

So, you know, I think that’s, that’s one approach that kind of leaning into, well, I don’t get to have these conversations very often. And so I’m going to try to understand our country and, you know, this tension better. And I’m going to breathe and I’m going to, you know, try to keep my feelings calm. 

Bri DeRosa: Yeah, which is a, it’s kind of a tall order, right? 

Anne Fishel: Oh yeah, it is. And so I’m saying that’s one, you know, that’s one size. Another size might be to say, I want to see my family, but I think this year I can only do it in a small dose. So I’m, we’re going to zoom during dessert like we did during the pandemic, or we’re going to stop by in the morning before some of the problematic family members are there, and we’re going to hang out with just a few members of the family and bring some appetizers and then we’ll bail and have our own celebration.

Bri DeRosa: You know, I think that’s, that’s actually that might be a really good solution for people who live, who do live sort of proximate to those, you know, those who are hosting and, and who can’t quite bring themselves to cut everybody off. And I feel like this holiday season is a wonderful opportunity for us all to practice what healthy boundaries look like, right?

So you can’t tell your mom, you can’t host Thanksgiving with Uncle Bob, Mom, what are you doing? I’m not, you know. You can say, if Uncle Bob is going to be at the table, I’m going to choose not to eat dinner with you because I can’t handle Uncle Bob this year, and I will miss you. But I would love to see you, you know, before the meal, or you know what, I’ll come over on Black Friday and spend the whole day with you and we’ll decorate for the upcoming Holiday or we’ll, you know, have a special leftovers meal together or something, right?

Like, you can make that choice, but you can’t tell other people what to do. And I think that’s what’s really hard sometimes when people are making these choices. So, how can, how can people appropriately and productively set ground rules if they’re going to try to navigate changing things up a little bit this year?

Anne Fishel: Yeah, so I think if you’re hosting and you don’t want Uncle Bob to come to dinner. That’s a really hard familial prospect. How do you disinvite somebody because you think they’re gonna make everybody else miserable? Yeah. I, I mean, I don’t think there’s any way around that without hurt feelings. Except to say, to Uncle Bob, I think this is a really unusual year.

We’re just rethinking it for this year. If it’s true you still love Uncle Bob, to say that with as much heart as you can muster. But for this year I’m making a choice. We’re, we’re just gonna have a very small Thanksgiving because it seems that feelings and conflict is gonna run too hot this year. So maybe we can do something else together. This is, you know, I’ve talked to my family and this is the decision that we’ve made.

Bri DeRosa: Yeah, that’s so hard, right? And, and my heart hurts for Uncle Bob hearing that, right? And so like my impulse, and maybe this is just a me thing and my own baggage, Annie, I don’t know.

But my impulse would be then to, to want to do something for Uncle Bob. So Uncle Bob can’t come to the family Thanksgiving. I need to, I need to set that ground rule because maybe, you know, maybe I’m hosting and I have grandchildren who are coming who are going to be really feel really unsafe and unwelcome with Uncle Bob there. Right, for any number of reasons. And so Uncle Bob can’t come, because I have to prioritize my grandchildren. 

But, you know, maybe I’m gonna have a prepared meal from a nice place delivered to Uncle Bob’s house for him. And I’m gonna, you know, ask him to Zoom with us for, you know, 10 minutes to say hello to everybody and I’m going to call them on Thanksgiving morning and check in or what, you know, whatever the things are. Like, I feel motivated and not everybody would, I know that, but I would feel motivated to, to your point, not just say, we still love you, Uncle Bob, but to make sure that if I really do want to keep that door open for the future, that I’m, I’m showing that and making sure that he’s taken care of for a holiday. Because, you know, I don’t know, my background is, has always been I can’t bear the thought of somebody alone and without a way to celebrate on a holiday. 

Anne Fishel: Yeah, I think that’s a really nice way around making a kind of a little rupture in a family to try to mend it in some other way, 

Bri DeRosa: I mean, it’s so tricky, right? Because… and look, I know that there are people out there for whom this moment in time feels like the final straw, right? There are people who this Thanksgiving, this holiday season will be the first of forever that they are no longer seeing their family of origin.

Right. You know, I think that’s a sad, unfortunate reality that we, we have to name. I wonder, there’s a grief process there, right? 

Anne Fishel: Right. 

Bri DeRosa: What do you recommend for families who, they know that this is it? People who are grieving the loss of family who are still alive. How, how, how do people reconcile that this holiday?

It doesn’t feel like a recipe for joy and peace. 

Anne Fishel: Yeah. Well, I think with any kind of family estrangement, and I think, you know, as a family therapist, I’m seeing more estrangement come about because of political beliefs. That wasn’t even really a very common category 20 years ago. But now political differences are a big reason that families cut off from one another. And that’s what you’re really talking about. 

But, you know, I would say estrangement is not, it might feel like forever, but it’s not always forever. Families do change, they do find a way to apologize, to forgive each other, to find common ground. So, I mean, I guess the first thing I would say is to caution about feeling like this is a death in a permanent way.

It’s a recalibration. It’s a seismic change in the family, but families may find their way back to each other. But for the time that it feels like an ending and it does feel like grief, I think leaning in towards the family you want to be with and trying to create something that does feel nourishing and celebratory and different maybe from what we used to do. You know, maybe it’s, as one of the families that we worked with years ago, I think around the pandemic, they recreated Thanksgiving to make a series of rituals just about things that they love to do as a family.

I think it was eating peking duck and having ice cream sundaes and watching movies together. So, maybe that’s what a family does, you know, they make up their own favorite things for this, this Thanksgiving. Or they, you know, lean into telling some stories that they want to hold on to, that maybe include the family that’s been cut off, but are stories that are, are worth saving.

Bri DeRosa: Yeah, I love that. And I, you know, I was on threads yesterday, so seeing a lot of people talking about this type of thing, right? This is a very ripe conversation right now, unfortunately. And I, I saw some things that I, I really loved and wanted to elevate. One of which was someone saying that she had always wanted to make a lot of food and give it away, and because of family obligations, never had the opportunity to do that. 

So her plan this year is to make a big Thanksgiving meal, pack it all up in to-go containers and drive around giving it out to people who either, you know, are shut in or maybe are unhoused and don’t have a meal. And she’s just going to like, go give food to people, which sounds really nice to me as, you know, she’s looking forward to it. It sounds healing. 

There’s, there are more structured ways to do that. Certainly you can always sign up to maybe go serve a soup kitchen or a pantry or a shelter near you. And by the way, that’s, if that is something that appeals to you, that’s also, I think, a really elegant way to get around the whole, I’m not coming this year, Aunt Betty, right? Betty might take it a whole lot better if you say, we actually, we thought this year we wanted to do something extra meaningful and we’re going to be serving to families in need. So we’ll stop by after and have a cup of coffee and dessert with you. Right? There’s just something kind of like, easier to take about that.

Other things that–

Anne Fishel: –it makes the family who’s saying that kind of above reproach. 

Bri DeRosa: Yeah, I mean, it’s, right. It’s sort of, I’m not suggesting that anybody should do that as a means of getting out of the family dinner. But if it’s something that you really want to do, and you feel called to serve, it’s a nice excuse, you know?

And I’m, I’m also seeing people, I know someone who’s like, Hey, you know, I invited a whole bunch of people who are untethered from their families right now for various reasons. We’re all getting together as a group and we’re going to play tabletop games and we’re making different, we’re having a pizza making challenge, right? We’re all going to make different pizzas.

And there’s a lot of ways to do this. And and it’s a time, I think, for people to remember that chosen family. And framily, right? Your friends who can be like family. That can be a powerful thing right now, I think. You know, I don’t want to be too Pollyanna ish in terms of a time when it feels a little bit tough for people to make holiday plans, maybe? Although, I also want to point out, there are lots of people who are really happy right now and planning to get together with their really happy families! 

Anne Fishel: It’s funny. We didn’t even mention that group, but —

Bri DeRosa: Yeah, I mean, the point of the episode was to talk to all the people who are feeling fraught, but we should mention that, right?

Yes. There are people who are really happy right now and are like, this is going to be the best Thanksgiving ever. 

Anne Fishel: Yeah. 

Bri DeRosa: Yeah. 

Anne Fishel: Right. 

Bri DeRosa: But, but you know, at the risk of being a little Pollyanna ish, I think it is important to remember, a holiday is a holiday for a reason. It’s supposed to be a day of rest, renewal, connection, and joy.

And if there is a way to recapture that for yourself right now, even if it’s an unconventional way, I think we want to, or I want to, encourage people to do that, because we get stuck in the gloom and the doom and the emotional baggage and all of the things and we all need rest days. We all need holidays.

They are purposeful in the calendar for our mental health and our well being, right? 

Anne Fishel: Right. Although, to be fair, Thanksgiving is never a restful day.

Bri DeRosa: Well, not for those of us who host.

Anne Fishel: Yeah, it, it’s a high intensity, I mean, it’s a lot of fun if you like to cook and you like to have big gatherings, but it is, the resting comes the day after and the day after that, once the dishes are done.

Bri DeRosa: This is true. This is true. But I think, you know, the whole point of holidays in human history is to provide a sense of renewal in some way.

Right? Yeah. And so we want to do that. 

Anne Fishel: Renewal, and I think connection to previous generations. I think Thanksgiving often serves that purpose, you know, when we tell stories about people who aren’t there or stories about previous Thanksgivings. So it offers some continuity to the past. 

Bri DeRosa: Yeah. And I, I, I think that’s a perfect segue to our ending where we always talk about food, fun, and conversation for the moment, but starting off with the, the food, this is An opportunity to, to your point, lean into tradition potentially, right? 

There’s, there are family recipes that come up that you might really enjoy making together. You know, maybe that’s, that’s a chance to neutralize things that you’re going to go and you’re going to make the family recipes together and you’re going to be reminded of all of that tradition and history and everything that you do share that does connect you. Or maybe it’s going to be the thing that comforts you as you’re taking a break from your family. Right? That you’re going to still make the eggnog cake or the, you know, I know you have your, your late mother’s special sweet potato dish, right? Whatever that meaningful food memory is, maybe that’s going to sustain you at a time when you feel like you’re not going to be able to be together. 

Anne Fishel: Yes. And on some level, if you are having a contentious dinner, that food is a kind of reminder that this is who we are as a family.

We’ve shared this, this food. We’ve shared a lot of other aspects of our identity and it, it might be conciliatory.

Bri DeRosa: Yeah. It’s a good opportunity to, to share that story too. Right. To, you know, Hey, remember when great grandma taught you to make this, tell me what that was like. You can kind of lean into that in a way that, that feels a little bit more positive, I think. 

And then on the flip side, you know, the other way you could go with food this year is, as we’ve said, something totally reinvented, right? Take out from your favorite restaurant, making pizza, whatever the thing is, right? 

Anne Fishel: Yeah, right. Or getting a, I remember during the pandemic, I got a, cooking lesson from one of my sons about how to make a pie crust on Zoom. And, you know, so that was something that we could, you know, you could do remotely with a family that, that isn’t coming this year to Thanksgiving.

So shall I talk about games for the table? 

Bri DeRosa: I’d love you to, because you always have really good ones for kind of helping people bridge divides, perhaps.

Anne Fishel: Well, I have, I have two games. I’ve one, if it’s a big family gathering and perhaps you’re not sure how things are going to go, or perhaps, you know, there’s a big divide and you want at least a few minutes of conviviality, laughter, a shared conversation. So here’s an idea I came up with in 2016, and it went so well I’ve done it every Thanksgiving since then.

I call it the hat game. And as my guests come in, I have post its and a hat by the door. And I have a question that I ask them to answer on the post it anonymously. One year it was, what’s your earliest memory? Another year is, who do you wish were coming to Thanksgiving? Perhaps somebody who’s no longer walking this earth, or perhaps it’s a celebrity. Write that down. Maybe it was, what character in a book as a child did you most want to grow up to be? So whatever it is, what animal would you like to be? Everyone puts their slips into the hat, I bring it to the table, and I pull them out one at a time, and everybody guesses which answer goes with which person.

And I think if it’s a small gathering, we have a fun reinvention of Would You Rather on the website. Would you rather thank or be thanked is one. Would you rather eat only turkey or only mashed potatoes for an entire year? 

Bri DeRosa: I love that holiday Would You Rather. And the hat game that you play is just genius.

And I, we’re going to link to both of those in the show notes so people know where to find them to, to have some prompts that are ready to go. And then speaking of things will link to in the show notes, for conversation, I mean, obviously, we want to keep the conversation structured this year, potentially. And one way to go is, last year we collaborated with History Made by Us, and we created some really great resources for Thanksgiving, talking about the way that we tell stories and the way that we approach history. You know, national history and our own histories.

And one thing that came out of that that I just love is this Thanksgiving storytelling prompts, these, these recipes for conversation where we’re asking people to tell stories that are meaningful to their, their lives and their own family histories and Thanksgiving. So things like, sharing a story of true generosity that you are a loved one has experienced, you know, a kindness that moved you so much that you’ll always be grateful for it. Or reflecting on your most just hilarious or transformative holiday memory. These are the types of things that could really get us all talking in a way that feels unifying, right? 

And then, you know, there’s also a little bit of a different tack on this, would be if you’re feeling kind of, you know, a little bit weary and a little bit broken down, and you feel like you’re digging deep for resilience this year. We actually have some conversation starters about resilience, and we came up with these, I think, during the pandemic, but they’re, they’re pretty, they remain pretty salient. Right.

So things like remembering family members who have survived difficult things in the past, like the Great Depression and what do we know about that? Or what difficult experiences have we already faced as a family? You know, have we, have we experienced job losses or, you know, major illnesses or other things that we’ve had to rally around that felt insurmountable at the time? And reflecting on those things could be really powerful right now. 

Anne Fishel: Or if that feels too Touchy feely for some families thinking, putting it in a historical perspective and imagining what Thanksgiving was like in 1863 during the Civil War, when there could be two sons at the table, one who was fighting for the Union and one for the Confederacy.

And what was that like? 

Bri DeRosa: I think anything that can help people gain perspective right now, you know, is really important. This, this might feel very all consuming to us at the moment. It might feel like, how are we ever going to get over this mountain? Right? But we always get over the mountain historically, you know, people always get over the mountain and sometimes the mountain’s really big, but there’s going to be, there’s going to be a future Thanksgiving, right? 

And so getting through this year in a way that feels the most positive and healing and productive to people right now is really the name of the game.

Anne Fishel: I think that’s a good note to end on, Bri. 

Bri DeRosa: Yeah. Well, I, I appreciate you being here with your always grounding wisdom your family therapy lens.

I think it’s It’s really useful for people to hear that, you know, we’re all, in some ways, we’re all in this together, as divided as we may feel.

Anne Fishel: And there are lots of different ways to get through it, enjoy it, bear it, live to see another day. 

Bri DeRosa: And if you were looking for permission, anybody out there, if you were looking for permission to do some kind of thing this year that’s different from past years, consider this your permission. We grant it. 

So, all right. Well, thank you, Annie. And thank you, listeners. We will, we hope that everyone has a happy holiday season, and we will be back in a couple of months, probably in the new year, with the next installment of the Family Dinner Project podcast.