Holiday meals and gatherings can add an interesting dynamic to any family. Suddenly large groups of family members are spending time together who may not normally see each other for a variety of reasons. Children can be shy around people they don’t know well in general and if your kids spend a lot of time online, making conversation may not be one of their strongest skills.
It’s not just the kids though. Sometimes adults become very stilted and awkward around children. Or they ask embarrassing questions or feel a family gathering is a great time to give a personal critique of everything about your child they find unfortunate. Throw in a few random discussions about politics and family hot topics and things can go wrong very quickly.
Thankfully, there is something fun you can do to encourage healthy conversations when everyone gets together. Place conversation starters in front of every place setting. Each person should have unique questions in front of them. These are open ended questions designed to get people opening up in fun ways and telling stories. You can find free printable conversation starter cards online, but add a few of your own. Make sure to include a few that encourage the Christians in your family to share their faith stories. Questions like, “Tell about a time you saw God working in your life” or “tell about a time you realized God was smarter and wiser than you” can provide some interesting faith stories.
If you have people in your family who have rejected God, place questions in front of their plate that are more subtle about pointing them to God, like “name three things for which you are grateful” or “what is your favorite way to help others”. Their answers might let others get a peak into how to better minister to them.
If you know a family member has a particularly good story to share, you can give them a set up question that will hopefully lead to the story, like “tell about your funniest encounter with someone famous” or “tell about the time an older relative had an interesting encounter with the mailman”.
Have fun with it. You can take turns with everybody listening to the same stories or divide the table into smaller conversational groups. If you do smaller groups, bring everyone into the same conversation during dessert and have everyone share the most interesting or funniest thing they learned.
This year minimize awkward and boring conversations. Have some fun and bond as a family by learning more about each other.