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Best topics to bring up at Thanksgiving dinner

Thanksgiving meals can be incredibly boring. Holding a conversation with family members you didn’t even know you had is always incredibly difficult. But fortunately, I am here. These are the best topics to bring up at Thanksgiving dinner. 

Politics

I would be remiss not to mention politics as the perfect topic to bring up at Thanksgiving. Instead of discussing what you are thankful for with your family, you should discuss hot button issues and politics. When your liberal, gender studies major cousin and conservative, gun wielding, toothless uncle start debating if the Jan. 6 attack on the Capital was a protest or a siege, be sure to thank me. 

Tensions will be flaring but the entertainment will be rivaling that of Alabama losing a football game. Sit back, make some popcorn and let the show begin. 

Marriage

Be sure to tell Great-Grandma Shirley that your 24-year-old cousin, Dany, still isn’t married. Back in her day, she had a husband serving in WWI by 17, six kids by 18 all while working in the factory while the kids were at school. So the fact that your cousin is not married yet is actually preposterous. 

If Shirley really gets into it she will start hitting your cousin with her cane and start shouting words you didn’t know were in her vocabulary. 

Tattoos

People of older generations are convinced that the only people who have tattoos are criminals. Knowing this fact, please show all the visiting aunts and uncles and grandparents that new tattoo of Kim Kardashian’s face you got on your butt. 

Great-Grandpa John will ask what gang you're in, Grandma Eleanor will likely pass out, and Dad may stop paying for college but hey, it definitely got the conversation going. 

Real Jobs

Even though your cousin, James,  just graduated from college and has a job waiting tables, that is not a “real job.” According to the rest of the family, he should have his life completely figured out by now. When they were his age, they had 9-5 jobs at the bank or the office with a 401K and a health care plan set up. Make sure everyone knows he does not have a real job yet. 

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Religion

The time has come. The moment we have all been waiting for. Time to say grace. Grandma will ask for volunteers to say grace. Volunteer your atheist cousin who believes in evolution, not in the Bible's creation story to lead the pinnacle of the Thanksgiving meal. 

This will be sure to get the room buzzing.

Need more ideas? Email your humor editors john1595@miamoh.edu and sulli293@miamioh.edu for more.