Make the food (rather than the conversation) divisive!

Tired of Aunt Debbie complaining that you don't make sweet potatoes just like her mom used to? Sick of cousin Brian going on endlessly about how much better the mashed potatoes were last year?

Well, how about changing up the holiday menu with ideas from Happiness Is More Recipes (Twig 19 Barney Children's Medical Center Women's Auxiliary, 1966)?

Instead of the tired old cranberry salad, how about some Holiday Cabbage?

It's more of a fruit compote with cabbage thrown in than a traditional cabbage dish, so hopefully there will be no precedent to compare this to! Plus, it lets your relatives know you will throw cabbage into just about anything if they get on your nerves, so that's a good threat to keep them in line for next year.

If you want some polarizing potatoes, this recipe might be just the thing:

Since both sweet potatoes and egg nog can be divisive flavors, I imagine part of the family will think that Sweet Potatoes with Egg Nog Sauce is a stroke of genius and part of the family will want to pelt you with cranberries and dinner rolls if you serve this.

If the family insists on staying overnight, you can use leftover cranberry jelly to make a unique coffeecake for breakfast:

A banana nut cake topped with cranberry jelly quadrants again sounds like something that will win the cook either undying devotion or a lie about how the guests don't usually eat breakfast anyway, so you shouldn't take their refusal to touch it personally.

And speaking of slathering everything with cranberry, leftovers can be turned into lunch with Saucy Turkey Sandwiches.

The sandwiches are really saucy, with both cranberry sauce and American cheese sauce smothering each sloppy layer. Again, this could be an opportunity to get the family OUT OF YOUR HOUSE or make them threaten to move in forever, depending on their feelings about bright yellow cheese mixed with tart berries and re-hydrated turkey.

And if you want to give them a little Christmas preview so they can decide if they want to return, hit them with a Frosty Yule Log.

Well, not literally, unless you want to be cleaning deviled ham mixed with cream cheese and onion dip out of the curtains and off the floor for a week. But you get the idea.

Here's hoping that whatever you have for the holidays, it gets the results you desire!