I Cancelled Thanksgiving

I cancelled Thanksgiving.

Rather, I cancelled having to deal with cooking a turkey dinner for five people and working like crazy in a hot kitchen all afternoon for just my immediate family.  But I will not miss out on any aspect of the classic Thanksgiving celebration.

Turkey? Check.

I have spent the past month helping to plan my Hall’s Thanksgiving diner (shoutout to Ryan Hall’s T-Giving Squad) to ensure it runs as smoothly as possible.  With almost all of the actual cooking crowdsourced to the fellow residents, all the food I had to help deal with was turkey and putting allergen labels on dishes.  Nothing expresses the real sense of dorm community like shredding eight turkeys alongside your rector and trying not to burn your hands.

For the past two years, I’ve made the turkey for our dinner, and I have pretty much no idea what I’m doing.  I followed a Youtube video for it! But I’m not even that big a fan of turkey, so I’m not missing out on Thursday.  And I got to eat stuffing, that I didn’t make, which is the best part of Thanksgiving

Seeing extended family? Check.

Yes, I did not dodge hosting something when I convinced my parents to cancel Thanksgiving.  A paternal family tradition of Thanksgiving breakfast (aka a gigantic brunch so all 70 of us can get together at least once during the holiday season) is to be held at my house.  Now, we’re long overdue to host, but it is so much less stressful than actual Thanksgiving dinner.  Instead of having to actually make a bunch of complicated foods, we are only responsible for pancakes and bacon, and can actually interact with the family we never see.  While I do tend to spend events we host running around moving coats and finding serving spoons, this may actually be a plus this year.  Anytime a conversation veers toward politics (and I am from a previously-swing-but-now-confirmed-red state), I can just run off to go solve a probably not-falsified problem.  Or I can go chase around one of the toddlers.  They can’t know about politics, but maybe I’ll stick with the younger ones that only know like three words.  Just to be safe.

Rearranging your entire house to fit guests? Check

From cramming enough tables and chairs to seat 200 into the 2-4 in Ryan, I would have had my fill of the game of Tetris that is hosting Thanksgiving.  But nope, I get to squeeze an extra 30 chairs into my house as well!  In theory, some of the work will be done by my two younger siblings who are (1) home from college as of Friday and (2) still in high school.  That has yet to happen, and I should really just hope no one makes me go rake leaves as soon as I get off the bus. Come Wednesday night or the crack of dawn on Thursday, I shall be setting up a mishmash of borrowed tables and chairs, couches and craft tables, armchairs and end tables so that half of my family can invade my house.  

So, I convinced my immediate family to cancel Thanksgiving, because we’ve basically filled all the holiday requirements.  Family, furniture rearrangement, and, as long as my sister gets to make her homemade cranberry sauce, food. So all I really avoided was the unnecessary formality of a five-person Thanksgiving dinner.

This definitely wasn’t because I have three papers, two projects, and an exam next week…

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