As many prepare to see family during the holiday season — and readying themselves for the familial dinner table talk they might encounter — Merrill Center for Family Wealth head Valerie Galinskaya joins Wealth! Host Brad Smith to discuss the best ways to approach awkward money conversations.

"Clarity of communications going into [conversations about money] and also being able to anticipate some of the questions and address them" can help make discussing a potentially difficult conversation easier," Galinskaya tells Yahoo Finance. he highlights the importance of "intent and expectations" in money-related conversations.

With the great wealth transfer underway, peoples' financial discussions with family may revolve around the transfer of wealth. "From the parental standpoint or often wealth creator standpoint, there's a lot of fear or uncertainty about 'I don't want to share too much' ... [While,] we hear from the children, oftentimes young adults: 'I'm really uncertain of how to bring this up because I don't want to be interpreted as entitled.'"

"We really think about it as not a light switch [where] you have to share everything at once, but as a dimmer switch," Galinskaya says. "Starting with what is the intent before getting to the structure and dollars is really important and practically speaking."

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This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.