Dear Eric: My sister, age 86, and I, 84, have two younger brothers, 77 and 74. We have all been invited to share Thanksgiving with one of my brothers and his wife. We siblings are spread out geographically and are not particularly close but not estranged either.

We all agree that “the girls” had a significantly different upbringing than “the boys,” with the girls getting the better deal. There are certainly no major factors like physical abuse during our childhood; however, our mother had some psychological problems and showed some anger and paranoia symptoms, which scared us as children and were overt enough that many in our town knew about her. In general, however, we had a typical mid-century, small-town upbringing.

My question is how to get the most out of this reunion without sittin

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