Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

The Cost of Thanksgiving

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We all know that the obvious cost are for the food, but I’m finding that a lot of people travel far during Thanksgiving, and those people are the ones that incur the real costs.

jet landing

flying

I’m fortunate in that the expense for gas as I drive on two separate days to both my of our parents isn’t really that bad.  I estimate that the cost runs close to $25.  For my sister it runs at least double that number.  She lives 2 hours from my parents and a good distance from her in-laws…

I don’t have the stats., but it would be interesting to see how much the cost of traveling is overtaking the cost of the food and preparation.  Just in my little example, it’s obvious that the expense of traveling can cost as much as the food itself.  Then again, perhaps Thanksgiving has always been about traveling far to meet family?  I’ve always lived close to my family, so while I still enjoy Thanksgiving, it’s really not a rare event since my sister and I meet our parents often.

I have to admit, it is fun watching football on TV, and having “The Christmas Story” play in the background as we all eat.  These are what I call soft traditions in our family.  They are soft because some years we do them, while other we don’t.

Here’s wish everybody in the US a Happy Thanksgiving!

MR

Early Thanksgiving Dinner, A New Family Tradition

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A New Thanksgiving Tradition

A New Thanksgiving Tradition

Every since I’ve been married, our Thanksgiving Dinner would consist of driving to both of our parent’s houses and stuffing ourselves twice.  While Thanksgiving dinner was always good when I was single, as a married couple, we always felt bad about leaving so soon to go to the my wife’s parents (that was usually the 2nd stop).

Another thing that really made the experience less enjoyable was the fact that we ate twice as much as we wanted to eat.  But to make both sets of our parents happy, we did so anyway.

My sister followed our footsteps, which I thought was crazy since she lived 2 hours away and her husband’s parents lived at least 4 hours away for my parent’s house!  But my sister and my brother-in-law continued to do this for the past few years, until…

Along comes Baby:

My sister’s first baby was born in February, and that has made all the difference!

Now for the baby’s sake, my sister doesn’t want to drive 2 hours and then later 4 more hours in one day, so after some discussion, the decision has been made to have Thanksgiving Dinner a week earlier at my parent’s house!

We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent’s house this past weekend, and it was great!  We all enjoyed the great meal, and since we weren’t rushed trying to hit two houses, we didn’t leave my parent’s house until 9:00pm.

Games were played, discussions were enjoyed and the baby had plenty of attention!  Nobody felt guilty since we spent the entire day there!  And instead of having 2 big meal that would later give us indigestion, we enjoy just 1 meal and felt fine after we went home!

If you find yourself in a similar situation, have you considered splitting Thanksgiving dinner up?

We did, and it was great!  This is another classic Lemons to Lemonade example.

Thanksgiving is once again an enjoyable  holiday for us!!!

-MR

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My Thanksgiving Day Routine

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Well, it’s Thanksgiving Day in the United States!  Instead of listing the  history, I thought I’d detail my family’s Thanksgiving Day routine.

Thanksgivings Day feast

  • After waking up, we watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on TV.  This parade is in New York, and we don’t live close enough to see it in person.
  • While still watching the parades, we drift downstairs to get a light breakfast.  Since we are going to have a big meal at noon, we’ll typically just eat a bowl of cereal.
  • We all get ready to leave.  After showers, the kids get dresses up nicely, my daughter puts on a fancy dress.
  • Next, we hit the road to my in-law’s house. Once there we’ll have our Thanksgiving Day feast consisting of: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, stuffing, vegetables (broccoli, corn, green beans, cauliflower), noodles and rolls.  For dessert, we have cake, pies (pumpkin and chocolate), brownies and ice cream.
  • I’ll try to watch some American football (maybe I should call this United States football), but this isn’t so popular at my wife’s parent’s house.  I have to sneak the channel change…  Later, we’ll try to watch “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” on TV or video (my little girl gets a kick out of it).
  • After the feast, we just socialize for a few hours, then pack it up and drive home.
  • Here’s the kicker, the next day, we have another Thanksgiving feast at my parent’s house.  We do it that way because my sister goes to her husband’s house on Thanksgiving day and they live over 3 hours away from my parent’s house.  Before my sister was married, we’d celebrate thanksgivings day meals twice on Thanksgiving day.  Once at my parents, then later at my wife’s house.

Overall, it’s a fun but hectic day.

I’m not sure if we are going to try to go out to the “Black Friday” or not.  If you go out and do “Black Friday” with friends, it be a bit more enjoyable.  This is a very frugal day to go shopping.

I’d like to say “Good Luck” to all the frugal bloggers out there that will participate in this event!