Not going to sugar coat it—I am not in the mood for any hard feelings around my holiday table this year. In a nod to the no-politics wedding trend, I’m instituting a stealth campaign of faux civility to my holiday experience. I’m not going to nail up a list of censored words and phrases, although after endless polarized podcasts, perplexing public policy mandates and other agita, I’d like to go Martin Luther on my family’s a**. Instead, I want to keep the holidays as they are meant to be, gatherings where family members gossip about relatives’ disease diagnoses, romantic misadventures and anodyne celeb news involving try-hards like Glen Powell and Hot Frosty.
To be clear—I’m not saying I won’t get into all the issues and do a deep dive on economics, politics and electric cars with toxic people later on. I’ve spent much of my life marching, fostering conflict and plain-old yelling (then as I mellowed/aged a bit, conversing) about politics. However I’ve never felt the chill I feel these days, so…I just want to make my little tablecloth the DMZ for the day, a no-fly zone for the dismissive rhetoric that I find myself and others engaging in so readily.
Ozempic. “Gosh you know, I don’t like to judge someone else’s choices about their bodies. Anyway, today is all about feasting! [Said with a big smile and if appropriate, a playful poke into the judgey person’s tummy].”
