Are you dating anyone? When are you going to get a real job? Why don’t you call more often? Have you started saving for retirement yet?
Most young people dread those hair-raising personal questions from their aunts and grandparents during the holiday season. Instead, they’d rather spend time with their friends.
Seven in 10 young Americans prefer “Friendsgiving” to Thanksgiving with the family, according to a new poll of 2,000 Americans aged 18 to 38. A majority say Friendsgiving, a holiday celebration with their peers and not their parents, gives them the opportunity to be more social, relax more, and not worry about those pesky questions.
Young people may be afraid of their families, but they’re also afraid of the kitchen. Most find cooking turkey or baking pumpkin pie intimidating. The poll, conducted by OnePoll in conjunction with Sabra, of course, includes a plug for hummus, which requires no preparation at all. More than a quarter of guests bring either hummus or guacamole to Friendsgiving.
As many aspects of American life become more casual, it makes sense that young people would push back on the timeworn tradition of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. But why are young people so afraid of their families?
Two in 5 young people say they anticipate biting their tongue during Thanksgiving dinner, and many say they worry about offending a relative. By now, it’s cliché to remind families not to talk politics at the dinner table in order to keep the peace. But that won’t stop corporate America from trying to sell you a new solution.
Uno even released a “nonpartisan” version in time for Thanksgiving. The red and blue cards become orange and purple, and there’s even a veto card that skips the turn of any politically chatty player and makes the speaker change the subject. Never mind that Uno never had any political affiliation to begin with. Politics seem so ingrained in our lives that Mattel can capitalize on something as banal as a red or blue card to market its next product as entirely apolitical, as if it hadn’t been so all along.
The most important thing to keep in mind over the holidays is that you’re unlikely to change anyone’s mind.
“People are so busy fighting with each other that they never think, ‘Wait a minute, why are we doing this and how can we stop?'” says Jeanne Safer, the author of I Love You, but I Hate Your Politics: How to Protect Your Intimate Relationships in a Poisonous Partisan World. “The thing that I discovered that was the most important mistake that people make — can’t even say it’s a mistake; it’s an attitude — is that we go into these fights with the agenda of changing the other person’s mind to feel like we do.”
Safer, who is a liberal married to a conservative, adds, “You don’t have to be stuck forever in these awful fights.”
That’s good news for millennials, as many of them appear to be approaching the holiday season with trepidation. So break out the Uno, avoid the socialist Monopoly, and focus on whatever brings you together — even if that means choosing not to bake pumpkin pie.
