Christmas has been on my mind a lot, but with Thanksgiving a week away, I’m curious to know what everyone is doing this year.
Usually, my family goes to eat at my husband’s grandmother’s house, but there has been some drama with my in-laws recently and my husband has decided we can do our own thing this year to avoid it. I’m really looking forward to cooking at home and eating with the people we’ve invited - people who actually like me. This might become our new tradition from now on.
Anyways, I’m cooking a ton of stuff. What is your favorite thing to eat on Thanksgiving? Where do you eat at? Any other Thanksgiving day traditions in your family?
I prefer anything that doesn’t include drama. If I get bored, I’ll probably make things worse for my own entertainment. No bueno. I like to just have a good time, laugh, eat, relax. Simple.
Its sad but family issues are so common. There is probably one going on at any given time in every family.
But dramas with relatives, also friends, are best brought speedily to a crossroads at which everybody has free will to do the right thing. Its always best to go step by step and specifically to get everyone to lay out what they have in common about whatever is at the heart of it, before talking about their differences or grievances.
After that, the people who do the right thing are true friends: the people who won’t do the right thing don’t deserve your time.
I think EVERY family needs a strong, smart leader. Just like when you were a kid and there was beef between two boys. The leader would tell the two of you to squash it and be friends again.
But he has to be a fair and level-headed man. Someone who has respect from the other men in the family. Together they lead the entire family and keep everyone in line.
We are lucky with family, my wifes parents are gone and mine are in the UK (where I am from) so we have no thanksgiving pressure from any of them. Both me and my wife are only children so we have no brothers or sisters to deal with. In short, we stay home with no visitors and have turkey. Our children have no aunts, uncles or cousins to deal with either.
I think no family needs a single head and no single head needs to be a man.
But any group needs someone who will stand up and say something is going wrong and things could be made better. So often in families things are not talked about, they get pushed aside, people are so polite they feel they can’t mention it when someone has actually done a bad thing.
Which all adds up to the stress of Thanksgiving or Christmas. These are occasions where people have an expected role, often people are forced to spend time with each other when there is an underlying issue that is unresolved.
My rule is to resolve all family issues before Christmas or the next family wedding or the next family funeral. Especially funerals…
Love this time of the year. Thanks giving is a nice time for us. A huge family gathering, yeah there are little spats from time to time, but they are the best memories.
In Thanksgiving dinner, everything tastes and smells like Thanksgiving, I love it. I love everything we make. but mostly the protein, there’s something in there that doesn’t feel like it in other days, love that smell and taste.
.
My maternal grandparents house, everyone gathers there. My aunts, Uncles and cousins, most of them we only see this time of the year in real life so, it’s special
Well we have little live music party some years, After dinner, everyone join in singing, there are some talented uncles and aunts who does it well, so we just join in background singing.
(Also shhh… every year me and my cousins sneak away few Drinks too… now I’m 18+, but it’s been happening since I was around 14 so it’s a little Fun, secretive and exiting thing to look forward still, It’s like coming of age thing among us, All good fun, but hidden from adults.)
The older I get, the less I want to be around all that drama. There’s also a lot of favoritism on that side of the family and my kids get left out. They’re getting old enough to realize that now. I’d rather just be with my own little family.
But I like cooking anyways so I’m excited to make new traditions for us
Sounds fun! I love that your family sounds less toxic than ours. My parents never do anything for Thanksgiving, we’ve always gone to my grandmother in-laws house. It isn’t really comforting over there though, especially knowing that they’ve all been gossiping about me. One day, I hope to be the fun grandma that hosts Thanksgiving.
Life moves on - and there comes a time when we need to “leave home” - My own family - stayed in communication (with undercurrents of gossip and “back-biting”) because of my parents - until they died - then I made the choice to distance myself from some of them - Not by a formal “falling out” - just by avoiding being in the same space - unless I felt the urge to go see one or more. When I do - I soon realise the reasons I made that choice are even more evident now !
I wish I had taken that step 30 years ago !
We don’t do “Thanksgiving” here in the UK - but Iwish you and your little family every happiness
Hi, we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the UK, but I am sure we will soon because we do celebrate 31Oct22 Haloween.
I think the nature of those who trade or have an interest in trading is more likely than not to challenge the status quo. To stand on one’s own two feet and to avoid being a crab in a bucket where all the other crabs want to drag you down to their level. Whether it be religion, culture, gender, race or any other “reason” I find it ridiculous that human beings want to talk about anything on a day of celebration such as favoritism, one-upmanship. So my wife and I have a small (and perhaps diminishing) group of real friends. When we identify anyone who wishes to belittle anyone else either present or absent, or have a hidden agenda of any manner of bad behavior, I talk with my wife after the event then we make a conscious decision to exclude ourselves ever so politely from the next and any other social engagement.
We are very lucky that we do not argue with any of my or her brothers, sisters, cousins or their close friends. We try our best never to insult anyone, whether intentional or not intentional.
I think your husband is wonderful (and you by the way) to take that decision not to attend. And you do not have to explain your actions to anyone either. When we have made those decisions we always then discuss our intended actions with our sons (who both still live with us at 31 and 25 years old) and we ask them to make their own judgments about friends and relatives. It’s pretty fair to say that they agree with our rationale and drop their relations too. I have said all my life that the priority of importance in our life should be yourself (to make sure you are healthy enough to look after your family, then your partner, then your children, then anyone else in no particular order.
Not sure what would be my favourite on Thanksgiving Day - probably a Turkey roast (surprise!) thought my dietary preferences are “flexitarian” - a new word I learned two months ago, and I can be wholly satisfied with a vegetarian or vegan meal, with some caveats that exclude some foods that are not good for your body even if they don’t contain any animal content.
We had grander plans but COVID put us in our place this year. Small Thanksgiving dinner with just those in the house. We missed the rest of the family, but I won’t lie, it was less stressful than normal.
We did! I enjoyed having the holiday at home, I cooked the day before and the day of so it was a lot of work. I made turkey for the first time (turned out amazing), stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, bread pudding, corn casserole, green bean casserole, roles, cranberry sauce, coleslaw, macaroni and cheese, banana pudding, and cheesecake. We ate on the leftovers for days after, so it saved from having to cook the next few days.
