Is Thanksgiving dinner worth the family grief?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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Location
The Sticks, Northeast PA.
I come from a dysfunctional family, so Thanksgiving was not a happy event. So, it's hard for me to judge how others feel about the holiday. Is Thanksgiving dinner worth the family grief?
 

Believe it or not, there are actually families out there that enjoy spending holidays together. There are even dysfunctional families that manage to put aside their gripes and get together for holidays without getting into arguments over politics, religion, the right way to carve the turkey, whose cooking is better, and without getting falling-down drunk and embarrassing themselves. Yup. There are.

If yours isn't one of them, spend holidays with friends instead.
 

It will just be my oldest daughter and a "grand" as the youngest daughter lives in Va. and cannot come this year. It will be simple as daughter is a pharmacist working 60 hour weeks, one grand has to work at CVS that day as a tech so I have ordered a Cajun fried turkey at the local meat market. She is making dressing and I am picking up sides. There will be brandied cranberries and a Patti LaBelle sweet potato pie. Sweet tea, milk, water and coffee. Lot of catching up with each other for a relaxing day. Plenty of leftovers for me to bring home and for them to have for another day. We will do more cooking at Christmas as I will do a seafood gumbo with the rice and Mexican cornbread. Her ex (the grands'dad) will come by for a visit both times. Everybody gets along well and we are all glad to see him. They get along better that they are divorced than when they were married.
 
I always had wonderful holidays growing up. After I was married I wanted to host the holidays and enjoyed it also. Everyone got along. Now there is some sadness because so many are gone. My daughter has taken over most of the holidays and that's fine with me. I think what annoyed me the most when I hosted the holidays were people not being able to tell me for sure until the last minute if they were coming. In recent years diets have been an issue. Trying to have something for everyone. One of the most maddening situations I had was when my husbands aunt was invited. She was a severe diabetic. I made sure I had all sorts of things she could eat. Dessert time rolled around and she gobbled up everything other than the diabetic food I had made for her. I love to look back at all the holiday photos and it certainly was well worth the effort and it still is.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I come from a dysfunctional family, so Thanksgiving was not a happy event. So, it's hard for me to judge how others feel about the holiday. Is Thanksgiving dinner worth the family grief?
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Yes, the first thing that popped in my mind when I read this was be grateful you're not alone, like so many on Thanksgiving, it could be much worse. Appreciate the people you are with, dysfunctional or not. Count your blessings.
 
From dysfunctional family also BUT I am looking to be grateful for any time with family because I never know when that privilege will be taken away. I consider myself dysfunctional also and people put up with me.
 
We'll be eating out this year. I've been traveling so much (and not for fun) lately that I can't face up to an eight hour drive up to my mother's, my daughter will be out of town, my granddaughter lives several states away and I'm going up there in December, and, as usual, there has been no invitation forthcoming to the Spousal Equivalent's son and DIL's house for Thanksgiving. They definitely know how to get in touch with us when babysitting is needed, but seem to forget we exist for holidays.
 
I grew up in a dysfunctional family but so did Jesus and most of my friends.

Eventually, you have to realize that you are an adult and get over it.

Celebrate Thanksgiving in a way that has meaning for you and the people closest to you.
 
It all depends on the year, family, everyone's health and personal events. Sometimes the combination will make for a bad experience that some will put in the never forget column.

Personally I'm worried about what people do or don't do year round, not just around the holidays.

Most jobs I've ever had included working holidays or scheduled weekends so traditional times and settings don't mean as much. And working when others have off made me realize life goes on, you won't melt and might even like driving into work with less traffic and supervision which can be a good thing. Along with some ot.

I just think the holidays are over hyped and raise false expectations. Especially for older adults. I think many try to recapture their youth with these holidays and dinners which is fine but life goes on year round.
 
AZ Jim said:
As a child it was my favorite holiday. Grandmas house, a great dinner and all my cousins to play with. I still think it is a wonderful time but not what it was. Oh to be young again...
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I think part of the reason holidays/dinners were so important years ago there wasn't as many ways to communicate so a holiday dinner was one way to catch up. Now with social media in particular it's much easier to stay in touch in a much more informal way. Also many tended to have more traditional 9-5 jobs. It's seems now alot of people have to work jobs with a lot non prime time hours. And there is much more going year round 24/7. Decades ago many neighborhoods became dead on a holiday, could bowl on the streets without interruption. Now a days it seems like rush hour several times during a holiday.

Once the kids and adults get older it really becomes a matter of convenience and priority. Do I work/make money or hear the same stories,see the same arguments and same people get drunk. Do I make an appearance with friends who have been there 365 and have done more than one who sends a greeting card(I do give some credit to those that never seem to forget and those who have not gone to the generic pre printed same story holiday letters).
 
Once we reached adulthood my siblings and I were pretty loose about celebrating holidays. Parents were in other states and busy with their own lives so sometimes we got together and sometimes we didn't.

We got a little more into holiday togetherness when my eldest sister died and my middle sister had two young kids. Fortunately everybody including spouses and in laws got along well so no issues there.

Now the "kids" are grown and one has 3 kids of his own! So Thanksgiving is the one big event we all still celebrate together. He and his wife take the kids to the East Coast at Xmas to be with her family, so Xmas is very low key. The rest of us get together for a nice dinner, some chatting over good wine and then say good-bye.

No family dramas. Had enough of that forced family stuff growing up (my generation w/our parents), so it's great that all our immediate family and spouses get along well.

People move into the San Francisco Bay Area from all over the world, so it isn't at all unusual for groups of friends to form their own "families" to celebrate holidays and special events.
 
'No family dramas'

That's good, here is the opposite. Never figured so many with gray hair would have relationship changing arguments/fights at a holiday dinner. There are now parents where their adult kids refuse to attend their parents dinner. They'll see them other times through out the year which is just as good in my book. Sometimes, especially with mostly or all adults there tends to be a few that seem to be looking for something or recapture past times. When they cant and realize it isn't going to happen it becomes another issue. I just not big on contrived events with false expectations.
 
I am so grateful that my family is close and loving, and enjoys the family gatherings, of which we have many throughout the year.

Thanksgiving is potluck, even though I still do a lot of cooking. Everyone brings a dish, my son in law smokes or deep fries a turkey so I don't have to bother with that which for me is the most onerous part of Thanksgiving! Each family member is free to invite anyone who doesn't have any place else to go for Thanksgiving, which means that some years there are several people who are strangers to most of us, but they're just absorbed into the celebration and made to feel at home and welcomed.

I stopped setting a table because most of the time there are just too many people. We do it buffet style, and are uncouth enough to eat off paper plates so there's less cleanup! ;)

We also don't get together Thursday. Because my kids' spouses or significant others also have celebrations that they want their family to be at, I decided quite a few years ago that I just wasn't going to compete with that, and have to put my kids in the position of coming to my house in between everyone else's. So we do it either Friday or Saturday, when everyone is relaxed, and not stuffed with the previous meal they just came from!!

This year Ron and I are doing Thanksgiving with his family on Thursday, we are invited to a friend's house for another Thanksgiving on Friday, and I am doing my own Thanksgiving get together with my family which Ron will help me with, on Saturday!! Gonna have to wear my elastic waisted pants after that!! :)
 
Dysfunctional doesn’t begin to describe my memories of Thanksgiving with the family. It was my moms brother and his family we’d be with. We’d be eating and my uncle would say something and my cousin (his middle son) would have some comment. That’s when fists would start flying, yes, fists. We’d be sitting there trying to enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner and uncle and cousin would be away from the table, both swearing and fists flying. This was when I was a young kid, but still remember that like it was yesterday. Stopped going after a few of those holidays.
 
Grin and bear it! Bite your tongue! One dinner a year will not kill you.........?:confused:
seasonal-celebrations-turkey_dinner-thanksgiving_dinner-thanksgiving-smartphone-cell-jsh121122_low.jpg
 
Meh. Expect a miserable day and get one. It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy. By the time we're the elders in the family, if we haven't figured out how to avoid the triggers and diffuse potential conflicts, we can count on spending crappy holidays with our families.
 
We celebrate Thanksgiving every year...We usually take turns but last year and this year we are having our family for dinner at our home....It's a year my husband had Cancer Surgery and celebrating
with our family and our lovely friend, my son in law's Mom...She is a widow....Giving thanks that my husband is alive....There will be 12 of us...Perfect around the Dining Room Table....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERY ONE ON THIS FORUM....♥♥
 
This will be the first time in all my life that we will not be celebrating the holiday with anyone. It will just be me and my Husband. Since my daughters been married she usually hosts the holiday dinners and every other year her husbands sister hosts it and we are always included. This year I just don't want to be in their company. They are very mean people and I just don't have the head for it this year. I feel bad that my daughter won't have us there to stop them from picking on her. My Sister also invited us but she has enough going on now with her son and his health issues, so I just want peace and quiet. My Son is going to his in-laws also and his 2 boys will be going with him.
 

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