For Thanksgiving dinner, a serving of good manners

Don’t think of Thanksgiving dinner as a stressful time when  children (and other family members) are under strict orders to be on their best behavior.

Think of it as a learning experience, and a chance to share etiquette tips that are useful not just at the holiday table but at family meals as well.

Nancy Tuckerman is a Salisbury resident who served as the White House social secretary during the Kennedy administration and who revised and updated the iconic Amy Vanderbilt etiquette book — all 1,000 pages of it.

In addition to teaching protocol to adults, she also makes good manners fun and easy-to-understand for youngsters.

She first taught a class on manners for children ages 6 to 8 at a Montessori school in New Preston in 1998.

“I was absolutely horrified when children told me you could go to the stationery store and buy thank-you cards that did it all for you,� she said. “All you had to do was fill in sweater or baseball or something.�

Mrs. Tuckerman also taught manners to home-schooled children here in the Northwest Corner. Some of her students were very young, some were high school seniors.

“I was so impressed by the home-schooled children,â€� she said. “They showed total concentration.â€� One  young man even asked her for advice on how to behave at and what to wear for his college interviews.

The Lakeville Journal asked Mrs. Tuckerman to share some essential advice for making the upcoming holiday meal more enjoyable for everyone.

• Sit up straight in your chair, napkin unfolded in your lap (never under the chin).

• Wait for your host or hostess to start eating before you do.

•  Choose your flatware by working from the outside piece inward toward the plate.

• Make an effort to enter into conversation.

• Cut and eat one piece of turkey at a time.

• Don’t talk with a mouth full of food.

• If you don’t like creamed onions, it’s fine to say “no thank you.�

• No texting messages during the meal.

• Thank your host and hostess when leaving; and a thank-you note is always appreciated.

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