Set the Scene: Design Environments that are Primed for Connection
What shapes your family gatherings?
At one extreme, unplanned gatherings can lead to dominating voices controlling the conversation. The charismatic family member offers their take on current events, or their personal experiences, while people mentally or physically slip away. On the other hand, without intention and purpose in the planning, gatherings can lack meaning and people leave feeling unseen. No feathers are ruffled, but no meaningful connections are formed, people merely go through the motions, and little is learned about each other.
When I refer to gathering with intention I’m not talking about table settings and the menu. While I do find these to be lovely and important elements, they are not most critical. Instead of becoming overly preoccupied with the granular details, take a step back to reflect on the overall purpose of the gathering and how the time will be facilitated to achieve your desired outcomes.
Christmas gatherings create an opportunity for connection, but this won’t happen unless we plan for it. It doesn’t take much to create pockets of meaningful conversation, gain insights about one another, and build a shared experience that will remain with you.
As was noted in our last conversation, our proximity to family can make it hard to change how we interact. Maybe the thought of introducing an activity, or structure, or any intention makes you recoil. But if you’re dissatisfied with how your family currently gathers, what could it hurt to try something new?
The first step to intentional gathering is figuring out why you are gathering: what’s the purpose your event is trying to achieve? Priya Parker is a conflict practitioner and author of The Art of Gathering and she suggests, every gathering should have a purpose; a purpose robust enough to shape the event, and filter decisions through. From the last email, you took some time to reflect on what your hoped for outcomes would be. Use those outcomes to determine the purpose that will guide your planning. If your family gathering is just to feed people, then maybe that’s being accomplished, but if your intent is to foster connection, then some intentional shifts to facilitate this may be necessary.
You might have relatives that visit from afar and gatherings around Christmas create an opportunity to connect with them. How could you add inputs and cater the structure of your gathering to facilitate this? Maybe introducing a question that everyone answers around the dinner table can help you connect around experiences you’ve had since you saw each other last. Then throughout the rest of the evening you can follow up and go deeper on what they shared.
Maybe your gatherings are structured around an aging loved one, and Christmas dinners brings everyone together. What hopes does this individual have for the time together? What could be facilitated to achieve this? Give some thought about how to "create a memory" that will linger with people after your time together.
Gathering well is an art, not a science. In the following section you’ll have an opportunity to reflect, and then implement to achieve your desired outcomes. I encourage you to bravely design and facilitate. We can’t control how people will respond, but as you step out you are increasing the possibility for connection and for your family members to feel seen and understood.
Tips for intentional gathering:
Reflect:
In one sentence, what has been the purpose of family gatherings in the past?
In one sentence, what do you want the purpose to be?
Who is this gathering for?
Discern your role within this gathering. You might be the host, you might be a daughter, a brother, a cousin, an uncle. Where might you have power to influence this gathering?
As a host, practice generous authority. If you don’t act with intention, the person with the most charisma will take over. Harness your authority to facilitate the purpose (your guests will thank you).
Don’t underestimate the impact you can make! You might not be able to structure the whole gathering, but introducing a question at dinner, or initiating a game that brings people together can be significant. You might even forward this resource to the host and ask if you can design the gathering together.
Engage:
Orient your family to your purposeful gathering through an invitation that primes them for what they can expect:
Create a fun name for your gathering, provide a dress code, name the purpose. Help them to know what’s being expected of them and why.
Have family members send you two photos from the past year of highlights or something they are proud of. Print off pictures and hang them on the tree or display them somewhere so people can share their experiences and ask each other about them.
Give people the social permission to step out of ordinary routines: Make a few statements once everyone has arrived to welcome people and give a directive such as, “Discover something new about two people tonight.”
Make a fun rule that promotes interactions: “Drinks must be served by others, you cannot serve yourself.” Ideally, if everyone’s thinking about others then everyone’s needs should be met.
Impose a restriction to create a temporary world for your family:
Have a phone basket by the front door and invite guests to be present to each other.
When people leave their seat to get more food, have them sit in a different seat when they return (this works best if food is on a separate counter and the room has pockets of places to sit and will depend on size).
During dinner, have a prompt that everyone gets to respond to. As host, ensure that people don’t leave the table until everyone has shared. There may be tangents from people’s sharing, so make sure to leverage your generous authority to redirect the conversation to the person who is next to share. You know your group best, try to pick a prompt that is accessible but also challenges people out of their comfort zones:
Share something that people in the room most likely don’t know about you.
Share something within the last year that changed your life.
When’s the last time you failed? (or some similar question related to things not working out or a disappointment).
Share something you changed your mind about in the last year.
How have your priorities changed over the years?
Pro tip: share first and model the level of vulnerability you are inviting from your family members.
Your family system will continue to produce what it has historically produced unless something new is introduced to disrupt the patterns. Have fun designing your artful gathering and see what can be discovered!