Most people have mixed feelings about Thanksgiving. On the one hand, it’s a great holiday full of family, friends, delicious food and football. On the other hand, it’s chockfull of awkward encounters with strange relatives, like the uncle who always wants you to pull his finger, the aunt who asks awkward questions about your personal life, and the cousin you mistakenly hit on at a wedding.

For me, Turkey Day is a blast. I toss a football around with my brothers, eat my mom’s delicious stuffing, crack sex jokes with my perverted older cousins and fall asleep face first in a pool of sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and my own drool. Delish.

But it wasn’t always that way. For the longest time I couldn’t stand eating a meal and watching football with dozens of relatives. Maybe it was because I was too young to appreciate it or because I hated the idea of sharing food with that many people. Maybe it had to do with my traumatic childhood experience involving my brother, a turkey baster, cold gravy and my brand-new corduroys.

Regardless, now that I’ve figured out how to enjoy the holiday, I can’t wait to celebrate it. You see, loving Thanksgiving is a learned skill, not an inherited trait.

It takes timing, preparation and effort to maximize the food on your plate, minimize your role in the post-meal clean-up, stake out a seat on the couch for the football game and avoid interrogation into your college life.

If you’re like me, this stuff is just like riding a stolen Segway: second nature. If not, you could be in for a long holiday. So, for your benefit, I compiled a list of five easy tips for a fun Thanksgiving:

1. Wear comfortable clothes. So many people lose out on what should be the feast of the year because they’re concerned about fitting into their pants. My suggestion: Lose the pants altogether. If that doesn’t fly with your family, then ask your mom for some maternity pants. Those bad boys should stretch right out as your stomach expands with delicious turkey. Plus, they go well with argyle sweaters. Go figure.

2. Keep an eye on the elderly. Every family has a matriarch, or patriarch, that gets first dibs on the food. Stay on them like white on dentures right up until the moment they ask you to help serve them food. If you pull it off, you’ll end up second behind them in the buffet line, earn brownie points with your mom and get to race around the block in grandma’s electric wheelchair, all for helping serve a little turkey and one measly spoonful of Jell-O. Then, once you’re both seated at the table, drop a subtle hint about what gift you want for the holidays and ditch the old geezer for a spot in front of the TV.

3. Work as a team. Game-plan ahead of time with your siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, to coordinate food duties. Nobody has enough hands to carry an entire Thanksgiving meal in one trip. That’s why you assign the turkey to one person, stuffing to another, pie to a third and then get your cutest relative to distract your fat uncle long enough to cut him in line for the yams.

4. Awkward silence is your friend. Some people love it when older relatives show interest in their personal lives. I’m not one of them. So I come prepared each year with incredibly awkward answers to any and all questions about my personal life that might come my way.

-‘No, I don’t have a girlfriend. I can’t. I’m still recovering from the circumcision.’

-‘Yes, I do party sometimes; if I’m still conscious by sundown. Crack is intense.’

-‘I would friend you on Facebook, but my friend told me not to after those strange pictures you sent him. Who knew a middle-aged woman could be so flexible?’

5. Be thankful. Sure, it’s cheesy, but the whole point of the holiday is to appreciate things. If you don’t believe me, just try these five tips next Thursday and see how your holiday turns out. Trust me – you’ll be giving thanks.

Danny Fersh is a sophomore broadcast journalism major, and his column appears every Wednesday. He would like to congratulate Nena, and he hopes that the sexual tension between you and your cousin goes away by dessert. Watch the Fresh Squeeze this week to find out how to survive the Zombie Apocalypse during Thanksgiving dinner. He can be reached at dafersh@syr.edu.