Thanksgiving preparations tend to only focus on the planning, food and decorations, but we often forget to prepare for the most critical element: social interaction. Thanksgiving conversations can be awkward. Attending guests with new boyfriends and girlfriends and long-standing disputes between family members can cause tensions thus hindering communication.
Conversations may steer into controversial topics such as politics or, worse yet, you could have nothing to talk about, leading to awkward silence. It’s important to prepare a couple of fun conversation starters for your Thanksgiving dinner to help steer the conversation in the right direction. A great conversation is guaranteed to get the family bonding in no time. This will keep everyone interested, and might even help you tame relatives with no-filter. Here are a few foolproof conversational starters that you can try.
Food
Food is always an exciting topic. And seeing as you are already enjoying a delicious meal, why not focus on the most obvious—the turkey. Surprisingly, this bird has a rich, interesting history that you could bring up in a conversation. For example, do you know that turkeys almost went extinct? You can also start things off by asking people what their favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal is. But the conversation doesn’t need to be limited to the meal on the table. You can ask them what is their most memorable meal was for the entire year. People usually have some of the craziest and exciting stories about restaurants they have dined in before. Prompt them to share some of their best and worst memories by asking questions such as “what is the worst restaurant you’ve ever dined in?” You can always take things a notch higher by asking people to describe the strangest things they have ever eaten.
Travel
Ask your guests their vacation plans for the holidays. What is in their bucket list in 2017? What is the most beautiful beach they have ever visited? You can ask them for some recommendations, too.
Conversation Cards
Although you can start conversations the old school way, conversation cards are an excellent way to add a bit of fun into the mix and get everyone involved. You can even use them as a centerpiece for your dining table. Print out the cards, each with a different topic or question and place them in a jar or bowl. Each person at the table can take turns to pull a card out. You can ask everyone to answer each question that gets pulled out or have each person answer the question they select.
The questions may range from the classic “What are you grateful for this year?” to “What would you like someone to tell you “thank you” for?” Here are a couple of other ideas you can try.
Questions for Conversation Cards
• If you just won 1 million dollars, what would be the first thing that you would buy?
• What is on your bucket list for 2018?
• Which TV family is most like your own?
• If you could only eat one food for any entire year, what would you eat?
• What holiday movie are you looking forward to watching?
• If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?
• What kind of jobs did your parents or grandparents hold when they were younger?
• What book or movie has inspired you this year?
• If you could time travel, where would you want to go right now?
• What achievements are you proud of this year?
• What Thanksgiving tradition do you enjoy most?
• If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?
• What new skills have you developed this year?
• If you had the chance to spend Thanksgiving with just one celebrity, whom would you choose?
• What’s your favorite Thanksgiving dessert?
• Who is the funniest person at the table and why?
• If there was a major catastrophe and you could only carry only three things out of the house, what would you grab and why?
• What is your favorite thing to do as a family?
You can avoid unnecessary tensions and awkward silences around the dining table this Thanksgiving by planning ahead. Brainstorm fun conversation starters ahead of time so everybody can interact and bond (you don’t have to tell your old family stories over and over again.)
With these fun conversation starters, you can make the next Thanksgiving the most exciting family holiday yet. It’s good to have the conversation cards on hand just in case the conversation dies out or steers towards controversial topics, making everyone uncomfortable or even lead to unnecessary heated arguments.
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