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25 questions to ask your parents this holiday
The holidays are when the family is finally around one table. Bring a few of these along. Start with the easy ones and save the last few for a quiet moment. Print it, screenshot it, or share it with whoever is hosting.
Easy openers
Start here, while everyone is still passing plates.
- 1.What did the holidays look like in your house when you were a kid?
- 2.What was the best present you ever got, and who gave it to you?
- 3.Which dish has to be on the table, and who made it first?
- 4.Where did everyone sit, and who ran the kitchen?
- 5.What song or smell makes it feel like the holidays to you?
Traditions
Every family has a few that started by accident.
- 6.What traditions did your family have that you loved?
- 7.Which tradition did you start yourself, and why?
- 8.What did your family do that you thought everyone did, until you found out they didn’t?
- 9.Was there a year the holiday went completely wrong? What happened?
- 10.Was there a holiday you spent far from home? Where were you?
The people
Good for an old photo album on the coffee table.
- 11.Who made the holidays special when you were young?
- 12.What do you remember most about the person who raised you?
- 13.Who is missing from the table that you wish the kids had known? What were they like?
- 14.What habits or sayings from your family do you still carry with you?
- 15.Where did you spend your first holiday as a couple, and what was it like?
Growing up
The answers here are usually longer than you expect.
- 16.What was winter like where you grew up?
- 17.What is the funniest thing that happened to you as a kid?
- 18.What was your first job, and what did it teach you?
- 19.What did you want to be when you grew up, and how did that change?
- 20.What surprised you most about becoming a parent?
The ones worth asking
Save these for a quiet moment, after the dishes.
- 21.What was the hardest holiday you lived through, and what got you through it?
- 22.What do you know now that you wish you had known at twenty?
- 23.What do you feel most grateful for when you look back on your life?
- 24.What moments in your life do you hope are never forgotten?
- 25.What would you want your great-grandchildren to know about you?
How to make it work
- Ask with a photo in hand. An old picture gives them somewhere to start, and the details come back with it.
- Ask one, then listen. “What happened next?” gets more than the next question on the list.
- Record it. A phone face-up on the table is enough. Years from now, the voice is what you’ll want most.
- Don’t make it an interview. Two or three good questions over the holidays beats twenty in one sitting.
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