Thanksgiving is like the marriage vow: For better or for worse.
In the coming hours, family and friends will descend upon us like the coming of the Locusts. We will greet one another with voices pitched so high that animals in neighboring counties will hear, like an old 78 RPM record on a carb-high. And as sure as there will be pumpkin pie on the dessert buffet, someone will say something that may offend somebody else, and the people we couldn't wait to see may be hurling verbal molotov-cocktails at each other.
For some reason this holiday, more so than any other, tends to bring out the best and the worst in people. Maybe it is the absence of gifts and colored eggs, or the presence of too many adult beverages mixed with heaping amounts of utopia-like expectations.
If you are hosting friends and relatives, remember that you set the tone. Don't fret over what is over-cooked. Frankly, it is the coming together with the people we love that matters most.
If someone else is putting on the spread, be a good guest and bring along a nice bottle of wine - you'll be granted immunity.
This year my wonderful sister-in-law will host our family - the size of a football team: 2% her side, 98% ours. I am grateful for her hospitality - and plumbing.
Thanksgiving has its own awkwardness, and all the ripe and ready ingredients for some ribbing, rubbing the wrong way or stepping on toes. But it doesn't have to devolve into an episode of Family Feud.
Carve out time to engage in authentic conversations with people whom you haven't seen in some time, offer to help, and feast on the blessings of family, friends, health and prosperity - afterall, "It 'Manners' A lot"!
