Anonymous wrote:Thanksgiving is racist.

F off troll

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Maybe the monotony of the food is what kills it for me. I’ve always eaten the same things every year - Turkey, Ham, Yams, Greens, Sweet Potato Pie in an endless cycle. Now as an adult, I continue to make these same dishes. Maybe I need to let go of the pressure to have the traditional Thanksgiving dishes.

Small family size. So we don’t travel to gather. No one visits each other so it’s quiet and should be fun I suppose.

Bleh.

Thank you all for sharing. Keep telling me about you all’s Thanksgivings, I am enjoying reading about your reasons.

I'm the French poster from before. I've never felt pressure to cook the traditional meal, since I have no family expectations or traditions. Turkey is so dry and bland and I don't really enjoy pumpkin pie or sweet potatoes. My husband likes roast duck, and we've done a braised lamb as well. And then apple desserts or my favorite, cranberry tart: so pink!

Thanks PP! I appreciate you sharing this. I hate that mentally I have been caged into those same dishes. I need to take this opportunity to expand out from those “expected” dishes.

Thanksgiving is racist.

I like that it is not religious or specific to any religion.

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Maybe the monotony of the food is what kills it for me. I’ve always eaten the same things every year - Turkey, Ham, Yams, Greens, Sweet Potato Pie in an endless cycle. Now as an adult, I continue to make these same dishes. Maybe I need to let go of the pressure to have the traditional Thanksgiving dishes.

Small family size. So we don’t travel to gather. No one visits each other so it’s quiet and should be fun I suppose.

Bleh.

Thank you all for sharing. Keep telling me about you all’s Thanksgivings, I am enjoying reading about your reasons.

I'm the French poster from before. I've never felt pressure to cook the traditional meal, since I have no family expectations or traditions. Turkey is so dry and bland and I don't really enjoy pumpkin pie or sweet potatoes. My husband likes roast duck, and we've done a braised lamb as well. And then apple desserts or my favorite, cranberry tart: so pink!

I’m shocked at some of the responses about Christmas. You all need to do Christmas differently for sure.
-all shopping done before 12/1
-plan on activity a weekend in December (polar express rides, meet Santa, family hike, whatever) and limit it to one.
- low key Christmas with everyone in pajamas all day enjoying new toys.
- Christmas Eve is the fancy meal in our house and kids are on their best behavior because Santa is coming.
-the food is 10000x better than Thanksgiving. Prime rib, crab legs, shrimp with fancy sides. Turkey belongs on sandwiches IMO.
-zero traveling and I actually get to host!

Thanksgiving is my absolute least favorite holiday. Better holidays- Christmas, Easter, valentines, 4th of July, Halloween, NYE, Memorial Day (bbq!)

I really can’t think of one good thing about it. Pressure to travel with screaming kids nonstop, squished into a house, terrible food (and I mean TERRIBLE. There’s not one spice present in the food on the Thanksgiving table I go to), cold and often snows and I have no control over any aspect of the holiday. It’s the worst. Maybe the pie I make is good (honestly the other pies are terrible). I can’t cook or bring dishes because we travel so far in advance. Turkey is cooked several days before Thanksgiving, then sliced and heated up again in the oven. I’m an adventurous eater and I find most of the food inedible. Kids whine nonstop about the food too which makes for a lot of extra battles with the kids (they won’t eat and then they’re hungry. If we make them eat, they fight us and whine. Can’t win). It’s completely joyous compared to all the other super fun holidays with incredible food. I actually really like Turkey, but properly basted, stuffed and sliced on the middle of the table while everyone watches.

Anonymous wrote:When people say Thanksgiving is their favorite holiday it puzzles me.

Why is Thanksgiving your favorite holiday?

It's not my favorite, but I like Thanksgiving. I like to cook and enjoy preparing the meal. It's a low key meal with my family. We usually go to a movie later. It's a nice day.

I used to love Thanksgiving but now we spend it every year with my DH's family who does not like it very much and doesn't do it very well. His mom does not like hosting and doesn't cook but she won't come to us and she is getting to an age where we would like to spend more time with her (especially DD). So we go and I'm glad to see her but the holiday itself is a bummer -- DH and I do most of the cooking but in her kitchen which really is not set up for hosting at all and then my BIL makes things as hard as possible by making lots of random demands about the schedule and menu while not helping at all. So it saps the joy out of the holiday for me, which is about hosting and sharing food and coming together. BUT DD really enjoys her time with her grandmother and I know MIL appreciates that we make the effort to go to her.

I've folded the things I like about Thanksgiving into Christmas, which we do at home, so now that's my favorite holiday even though I'm not super into the gift aspect. I have already started decorating for Christmas (I love Christmas decor and making the house feel really twinkly and cozy during the darkest part of the year) and I've already started planning menus for the two big meals we'll host and I will have all my gifts bought and wrapped by the week after Thanksgiving so after that I can just enjoy the season.

My husband loves it and makes too much of a big deal over the meal. He handles at least half of the work. But I work so much more than him during the week, that I find the day exhausting. I do really reallly love having a four day long weekend, and basically starting the the Xmas season on Friday when we buy our tree. I love Xmas, I love gift buying, I love the magic of a whole season of feeling warm and fuzzy inside.

But the women responding that they hate that Xmas puts pressure on them to make every event magical for their kids…. You guys need to get off the social media treadmill. This is not a thing for most people.

Family, food, no gift giving, and most guests stay in a hotel and not in my house. Everyone travels to me because I cook and host, which I love doing. Every other time of the year, guests stay in my house and I have to cook most meals. With Thanksgiving, guests are like “Oh you are cooking THANKSGIVING,” we don’t want lunch. We will figure out breakfast and stay out of your hair!”

Family, cozy, talking about what we're thankful for, fire, comfort foods.

Nice to have traditions on who brings what so it's not that difficult to plan.

We have traditions, too, to talk about ancestors and share family stories.

If I had to do a big family dinner, I'd hate it. But we established a tradition many years ago of travelling somewhere warm over Thanksgiving. First the two of us, then the three of us. We can do and eat whatever we want. It's relaxing and delightful. We see family in December.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like the food and it’s not commercial/materialistic

This. It got a lot more enjoyable when we stopped allowing any drama in our lives too. Big family Thanksgivings are great when there are healthy dynamics. I found I could enjoy the foot and company much more when we just did out own family unit-no arguing/guilt trips/digs.

+1 we keep it limited to our small family unit and worry less about traveling to big family visits

Anonymous wrote:I like the food and it’s not commercial/materialistic

This. It got a lot more enjoyable when we stopped allowing any drama in our lives too. Big family Thanksgivings are great when there are healthy dynamics. I found I could enjoy the foot and company much more when we just did out own family unit-no arguing/guilt trips/digs.