Blended families don’t blend in a week. Some of the best ones took years and a lot of awkward breakfasts.

Timelines in a new family are longer than anybody admits out loud. Everyone involved expects the awkwardness to resolve in a few months, and when it does not, people start concluding the whole thing has failed, when the ordinary version of this takes years of unremarkable meals and small accumulating familiarity. Nothing dramatic fixes it. Time and repetition do most of the work.

If you are in the early part, you might lower the expectation rather than the effort: show up to the meal, be civil, and do not perform closeness you do not feel. Pick one person in the house to get properly comfortable with first.