Several of my clients told me that they planned to talk about their estate planning with their families over Thanksgiving. My initial reaction was that I thought it was a bit odd.  After all, Thanksgiving is a time to enjoy family and give thanks for all of our blessings.  It’s not about death and dying!  After more thought, I think that my clients have it right since estate planning is really a loving process for your family.

Because Thanksgiving is about family and taking time to appreciate all that we have, talking about estate planning over the Holiday makes sense.  If you have young children, you need to consider who will serve as guardian.   Assuming that your desired guardians are a part of your family, you can “steal away” a few minutes to confirm that they are willing to serve when you are with them in person.  I have always thought that it was a shame to either name someone for this role without asking or causally asking over the phone or by email.  We make a lot of big decisions rather casually, but naming a guardian to raise your children is too important to make that decision casually.

Even if you don’t have young children, other critical estate planning decisions involving family must be thought out. Who will serve as trustee or executor of your estate?  If you want to name a family member, maybe over a turkey leg you can talk about what it exactly means to be a trustee or executor.  Sounds strange, but how many times do you really get together with your loved ones where you can talk about these things?

Some of your family may have already done their estate planning.  You might be able to take advantage of their hard work and get some good ideas to incorporate into your Will or Trust.  If they have not, then by simply bringing up the topic may spark action on their part to do their own estate planning.  There’s nothing like spreading the love over the Holidays.

Happy Thanksgiving!