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Grandma’s pumpkin pie. Aunt Maria’s seven-layer salad. Uncle Ted’s cranberry sauce. And, of course, that big turkey roasting in the oven. All of these are ingredients for a great Christmas. Yet, when it comes to holidays, the most important ingredient isn’t poured into the sweet potato casserole or placed on the table. The most important ingredient at a family feast is, well, family. That’s where problems can begin. Even if the turkey, stuffing, and pie are perfect, your relatives might not be! How can you keep your cool when your sister’s bugging you, your uncle is yammering, and Grandma keeps making comments about your hair? Turkey, Dressing, and Stressing “Holidays can be a very stressful time for families,” admits Jennifer Murray Connell, a social worker and instructor at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. “People want to have that perfect holiday,” Connell explains. “There’s a lot of pressure on families to have that. But at the same time, parents might be tense because of work, travel, or money.” Moreover, at… Read the rest

“Grandma, could you please pass the stuffing–and, hey, have you ever been diagnosed with hypertension or high cholesterol?” A family holiday may seem like a strange time to discuss matters of life and death, but the U.S. surgeon general says it’s the ideal time to collect information about the health of your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins–since they’re all gathered in one place. In fact, Thanksgiving has been officially declared National Family History Day. Why does the country’s top health official care whether you know what disease your great aunt Flora died of? Why should you? Because it could help you live longer. “Many diseases and conditions are at least partially hereditary,” explains Alan Guttmacher, deputy director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health. You may have inherited more than just your mom’s green eyes and your dad’s brown hair; the chance of developing some health disorders can also be passed down from generation to generation through genes. For example, if your maternal grandmother… Read the rest