Tis’ the season of pumpkin spice latte’s, caroling dub-step Christmas songs, and awkward family gatherings. Uncle Joe Bob always wants know how your sports are going, Aunt Sally wants to know how your grades are and your third cousin Ashley who has a new boyfriend on her arm every holiday family get together wants to know about your love life. Besides the repeated phrase of “happy thanksgiving” or “merry Christmas”, followed by hugs and occasional cheek pinching, we are scared to talk to our family.

​Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think? Family is suppose to be our safety zone where you can be yourself but instead we avoid the awkward confrontation of life questions because in reality we don’t know how to hold a conversation or maybe we put up a facade, always robotically responding “I’m good? How are you?”. I mean that’s what you want to hear when you ask someone how he or she are, right? Any other answer would include a long vent session of true feelings that none of us truly want to hear, harsh but true… it’s called small talk… which we have changed into actual communication. Senior, Katie Langley, shared “Family gatherings are so awkward that my family didn’t even go to my aunts house for Thanksgiving, we skipped and went to the beach”. Family gatherings can also be awkward when you have to attend 2 different thanksgiving celebrations. Freshman Mia Mortenson said “”My thanksgiving was awkward because my parents are divorced and my brother and I had to attend two separate thanksgivings. One with my dad and his girlfriend and another with my mom and her boyfriends family, you can imagine how it can be uncomfortable going to a family you aren’t in’s thanksgiving.” Unfortunately, we can’t follow twitters advice with “snappy comebacks to all the haters at Thanksgiving”. For example, when your Aunt says, “I’ve heard you are struggling in school?” merely respond, “I’ve heard your spanx are struggling to keep it together” or when your uncle says “I see you are still holding on to that girl” comeback with “I see you still can’t hold a job”. INSTEASD, interact in family games such as “Topics”, a breaking awkward silence game in which everyone pulls a random card and goes around and reads their topic then discussing it. We can’t pick our family so in the mean time make lemonade out of lemons and actually get to know your family.