Thanksgiving Rider

November 10, 2023 6:54 AM

It's that rare thing - a New Yorker humour piece that's actually funny!
posted by Paul Slade (54 comments total)

I didn't find it funny at all. I found it terribly tragic. Still worth reading, though!
posted by meese at 7:16 AM on November 10, 2023 [8 favorites]

What this made me think of, is how as a UK person, the American attitude to Thanksgiving seems to strongly parallel the way that the UK feels about Xmas or at least we see articles of this type about the UK Xmas family experience. What strikes me is we seem to see much less in the way of these articles about the US Xmas experience. Am I imagining that, or is there some fundamental difference as to how Americans approach Xmas as opposed to Thanksgiving?

Is it just that less Americans celebrate Xmas? Is it seen differently? Do people celebrate it very differently than Thanksgiving? Is a US Xmas less about families getting together than Thanksgiving?
posted by biffa at 7:18 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Reductively, Thanksgiving is the holiday when you are supposed to bring together as many of your family members as possible for the meal. There are no gifts. People are supposed to bring parts of the meal. It's a get-together.

Christmas, on the other hand, involves presents, and tends toward smaller, closer-knit groups rather than "as many people as possible." Also, families can have different traditions that clash at Christmas (when do you open the gifts, does Santa come, which is the big meal, &c.).

Thanksgiving is thus much more geared to drama.

YMMV
posted by chavenet at 7:31 AM on November 10, 2023 [30 favorites]

Thank you, that was well done. US person here - given that my family is Jewish, we don't do anything for Xmas (except maybe get together to go see a movie and get some takeout, if I'm in town), but Thanksgiving is the annual high-stakes stress-filled extended family reunion. For those who do celebrate Xmas, my sense is that there are family gatherings, but that they tend to have smaller numbers of people (maybe other people can speak to this?), and that the existence of presents/stocking stuffers, mulled wine, and just general more cheer and fun seems to make it a more pleasant holiday.

(I always find Thanksgiving inherently kinda grim - it's celebrating surviving the winter in a place whose land you're stealing thanks to the generosity of the people you're killing off and taking land from - and that ends up kind of fitting the "we're eating together and there's lots of shitty things we're avoiding talking about" feeling that seems to be the general Thanksgiving vibe, mashed potatoes & pumpkin pie notwithstanding.)
posted by nightcoast at 7:31 AM on November 10, 2023 [5 favorites]

It seems to me that if Talent is actually provided the amount of alcohol required by the contract, the rest of it will be pretty moot, as Talent will be unconscious--or at least blottoed--for much of the weekend.
posted by pangolin party at 7:40 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I hadn't thought about that before, but Thanksgiving is pretty consistent in its traditions, you get everyone together and eat a specific menu of items, some sort of television watching is done (parade/football/kennel club dog show), everyone just hangs out; There are so many different ways to celebrate Christmas that it's hard to pin down enough people to agree to have one Christmas gathering.

Pretty much every time we do get involved in Christmas shindigs, there's like five different events we have to attend, with different rules on whether to bring food or gifts or how to dress, and happily all really don't last very long because everyone else has other shindigs to get to as well.

Like, because of this who-will-be-where-and-when tomfoolery, this year my Grandma is having Christmas on December 10th, and that's it, if you want to come to Grandma's Christmas you better be there.

In my family, Thanksgiving isn't that much of a big deal; More often than not it's just my wife and I and the one kid who lives in town, I throw some turkey breasts in a crock pot with gravy and potatoes and carrots and onions and we watch the dog show on tv.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:44 AM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

My extended family is mostly incredibly chill about when we celebrate holidays, this year’s Christmas will be on January 2nd, but for some reason we celebrate Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving and as someone who lives 2 hours away when there isn’t traffic I decided to sit it out this year. So my Mom stopped talking to me for four days (even with me offering to visit on Friday) because it was “hurtful that I don’t really care about family”.

What I’m saying is this was extremely relatable despite not mirroring my life, and I need a nap.
posted by lepus at 7:52 AM on November 10, 2023 [11 favorites]

This way, way, way, too close to home. Closer to home than I actually want to be for Thanksgiving, but I’m gonna go anyway
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:57 AM on November 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

given that my family is Jewish, we don't do anything for Xmas (except maybe get together to go see a movie and get some takeout, if I'm in town)

Senator Lindsey Graham: Now, as we move forward and deal with law of war issues, Christmas day bomber. Where are you at on Christmas Day?
[Then-Nominee, Now Totally Badass Justice] Elena Kagan: Senator Graham, that is an undecided legal issue. Well, I suppose I should ask exactly what you mean by that. I’m assuming that the question you mean is whether a person who is apprehended in the United States is——
Graham: No, I just asked you where you were at on Christmas.
Kagan: You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.
posted by The Bellman at 8:00 AM on November 10, 2023 [20 favorites]

Laugh or cry? Yes.

This is more or less what my sister and me have to do with my mother for Christmas and other big dates. Set very clear limits, rules, and consequences. First time she did not believe we would pack the children and leave in the middle of dinner, we did, and we have had better gatherings since.

When I lived in the US a couple times well intentioned people invited us to their homes so we wouldn’t be lonely for thanksgiving. It was not a fun experience, so much tension in the air, too much not very good food, and the whole avoiding Native American genocide conversations thing.

The last few years we hosted a low stakes dinner at our house for friends who couldn’t or did not want to have traditional thanksgiving. A bunch of people doing food prep or just hanging out, children in comfortable clothes playing and running around, alcohol and weed, and blankets and couches and big pillows for anyone to take a nap at any time. I took the opportunity to cook really slow stuff, like 8 hour braised goat shanks, or 12 hour Mexican style oxtail.

I was thinking what the bring as much family together date is in Mexico and the closed I get are baptisms, first communions, weddings, and funerals. Looking at my calendar they happen on average every 8.5 months in my extended family, but then there are the busy years where you have to talk to the evil uncle four times in a year.
posted by Dr. Curare at 8:16 AM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think there's also a thing in the U.S. where Xmas has a longer break associated with it, is wrapped up with the end of the year as a whole, and if you generally go visit family during that time, there's kind of more of a space in your head for that. Thanksgiving always feels like it's squeezed into one's hectic schedule in a way that Xmas break isn't as much, so it can feel more like an obligation to see family rather than an opportunity to, if that makes sense?
posted by Navelgazer at 8:27 AM on November 10, 2023 [12 favorites]

families be nagging amirite
posted by uncleozzy at 8:28 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

I host spaghetti dinner for the small family (kid, son-in-law, grandkid) on Thanksgiving because I always have spaghetti dinner for the family on Thursday nights. It's a win for everyone. Also, I don't drink. However, I do go watch the parade because I try to get out of the house every day.

That said, the piece was uncomfortably close to home for this formerly gifted child with ADHD who didn't stop drinking until 22, because when I was little I didn't understand how intense all that hilarious word-play between the adults was (as the end of the story makes clear). God family Thanksgivings were unpleasant for me as an adult until everyone moved away and a couple of generations passed away.
posted by Peach at 8:33 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm Canadian and not particularly religious (other than vaguely Catholic in a mostly cultural way if that makes sense) so Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas are all pretty much the same holiday for my family. We all get together and eat lots of food and then have a big dinner and then regret how much we ate. Christmas has a pretty simple gift exchange tagged on. And in general Thanksgiving doesn't traditionally have all the baggage attached to it.

It helps that my family actually enjoys each others company and likes each other as people. So there is very minimal drama, when we rib each other it goes well and is received in the way it's intended.
posted by cirhosis at 8:48 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

In my family, Thanksgiving and Christmas are pretty much the same, except Christmas has a (mostly) private round of opening presents at each participating local household, and then a few gifts at the designated party house. The home gifts (mostly referring to kids' presents here) do not come to the designated party house. The meal is pretty similar, the adult conversation pretty similar. If one is insufferable due to conversation or a loud relative, they both are.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:49 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

how do i turn on track changes?
posted by mullacc at 8:55 AM on November 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

I didn't find it funny at all. I found it terribly tragic.

Great writing is often both.

Life too, I suppose.
posted by gwint at 8:55 AM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Venue will provide Talent with complete, private access to her childhood bedroom

My childhood home was sold right after I graduated from college and moved to San Francisco, despite my mom telling me since I was able to understand words that I was going to inherit that house. I miss it - and my childhood bedroom - terribly.

And then they sold the next house, which I had come to adore and find comfort in, right after I moved back from San Francisco, and moved to a personality-free home in a cul-de-sac off of a major roadway, far from the town were I grew up, and where all of our family friends and many of my school friends still live. The only good thing about this house is that it is single-story, which means my stepfather, who has developed mobility issues, can traverse it.

I haven't been home for Thanksgiving in a very, very long time. Maybe since 2008. There is little to no point in becoming sentimentally attached to places and things. They are all ephemeral.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:03 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

There is little to no point in becoming sentimentally attached to places and things. They are all ephemeral.

As are people.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:11 AM on November 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

As a Brit, reading all this makes me kind of glad that we don't do Thanksgiving. And since we, the kids and their respective partners all like each other's company, we look forward to Christmas.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:17 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

huh, this is ok, I guess?

I do not relate at all. I'm a USian and my family always did Thanksgiving, but just with the immediate family or maybe also grandpa. it was always super low-key and mellow. eat too much, watch some movies or football. I recommend it!
posted by supermedusa at 10:01 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

That was lovely, especially the ending.

When I lived in the US, people kept thinking it was sad that I was alone on Thanksgiving —even though the holiday means fuck all to me— and kept inviting me to go to their friend's stepmother's dentist's house or something.
I worked out an agreement with the guy whose house I lived in, who also didn't give a fuck, that we'd be each other's white lie, so I'd tell people I was already doing thanksgiving dinner with him and he did the same with me.
posted by signal at 10:19 AM on November 10, 2023 [10 favorites]

The first time I was a guest at someone’s house for thanksgiving my friend’s grandmother vowed to disown every single one of her children because they’d had her driving license suspended after she’d driven her car into the supermarket, again, and an uncle tried to get me and my friend to smoke up with him and I thought: “Yes, this is it, this is the Thanksgiving that American pop culture promised me.” Anyway, all the other ones were really chill and nice, but I’ll always cherish that first one.
posted by Kattullus at 10:29 AM on November 10, 2023 [31 favorites]

My family was manageable at holidays until Fox News was invented and two siblings decided that accepting the gay/queer kids in the family was a step too far and now we don't get together anymore.

There were different tensions when I was a kid, often around money, but most of those folks have died.

Anyway I thought this was well-written but I'm a little tired of the Aging Sad Single Gal trope. It's one thing for relatives to care too much if you're married, it's another for you to care so much you get weepy drunk.
posted by emjaybee at 10:47 AM on November 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

My brother invites my family to their house for Thanksgiving, while his spouse invites one of her siblings' family. This may sound equitable, but the sibling she invites has 4 adult children, 2 of whom have kids of their own. My family consists of me, my spouse, and our kid who's in college. We are vastly outnumbered, and it is unpleasantly noisy, hot, and uncomfortable, although there usually isn't much drama these days. We usually don't go, although some years we make a concession in the name of family unity. I vastly prefer to do a small Thanksgiving at home with just us.

For years one of my best friends would host a leftovers party on the day after Thanksgiving. That was always a delight, since it was all our friends, and was a highlight of the year. That hasn't happened in the past few years for a few reasons, one obvious and several not so. Hopefully this tradition will return.
posted by mollweide at 10:50 AM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday but it is because my favorite way to do it is with lots of friends, created family and occasional actual family with a no-rules potluck approach, lots of drinks and great good cheer. This year I'm celebrating my 22nd annual pre-Thanksgiving potluck at my house. In the old days, when were younger, I had as many as 60 guests. This year, it will probably be around 30, but it will likely and not-so-secretly be my favorite night of the year.
posted by thivaia at 10:53 AM on November 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

Got a McSweeny vibe, and I'm here for it.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 10:53 AM on November 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

This year I'm celebrating my 22nd annual pre-Thanksgiving potluck at my house

For the last few years we've been doing a Thanksgiving morning parade-and-breakfast for our friends. I'll make a few buffet-able brunch items and provide mimosas and bloodies and everyone sits around enjoying the parade and each other's company while I cook the Thanksgiving dinner for our family. Pajamas recommended, hard pants discouraged, slacks absolutely forbidden.

Transitioning to cooking Thanksgiving, actually, has been the #1 upgrade to my feelings about the day. A close second is not doing giant Thanksgivings with extended family. But being able to pop into the kitchen and not engage with anyone else is really great.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:08 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

At the Thanksgiving table when I was 12, I blew my extended family into two or three pieces by calling my uncle, for whom I was named, all three names, and who was a sitting Federal judge at the time "a drunken bigot and not fit to sit on the bench".

My parents were also bigots, and I had already pointed that out to them on a number of occasions, but they must have stood behind my right to express my opinion then, because I never heard a word about that incident from them or anyone else, ever.

But as far as I know, my father also didn’t hear a word from his brother the judge with whom he'd been close, for the next 12 years, and ended up dying alone while I was away at school.

There is a price for doing the kind of thing I did, but I should have been the one who paid it, not my father.
posted by jamjam at 11:09 AM on November 10, 2023 [14 favorites]

Big thumbs up for spending Thanksgiving with more friends than family. Meanwhile, as a Jew whose children won't see their grandparents unless somebody gets on an airplane, I've discovered the joy of holiday arbitrage: in any given year, at least a few out of Purim, Passover, high holidays, Sukkot, or Hannukah are guaranteed to be off-peak and uncrowded.
posted by PresidentOfDinosaurs at 11:30 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Anyway I thought this was well-written but I'm a little tired of the Aging Sad Single Gal trope. It's one thing for relatives to care too much if you're married, it's another for you to care so much you get weepy drunk.

I'm an aging single gal and sometimes I am sad about it. This isn't a trope, it's a real thing that real people really experience.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:33 AM on November 10, 2023 [20 favorites]

Just adding to that last thought -- when I am together with family is actually when I am most likely to get weepy about being single. It's not because I get a hard time about being single, my family never played that game at all, but because I see other family members being happy together and it makes me want that. This is how I occasionally end up melting down in the bathroom at family weddings. I'm not a miserable single girl who just wants to get married 100% of the time, but being surrounded by coupled off people sure brings up those feelings in a predictable way.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:46 AM on November 10, 2023 [16 favorites]

Thanksgiving day 1963 ... came back to my New Jersey suburban home from my freshman year at Yale for the occasion. As I was the first of my family to go to college, the relatives were curious -- what did I learn at school? Well, the most astonishing thing I learned was from Anthropology class. We were shown scientifically that there are no separate races of mankind, and that race is only a cultural construct.

My whole extended family was outraged. What are they teaching you up there? I suddenly saw a bottomless chasm open between me and every one of my older relativies, and that racism wasnʻt just a "southern" problem. I could not truly go home again.
posted by Droll Lord at 11:49 AM on November 10, 2023 [22 favorites]

I have a two year old who is growing up all too quickly, and this made me want to grab him and give him extra hugs and kisses.
posted by pmv at 11:55 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Anyway I thought this was well-written but I'm a little tired of the Aging Sad Single Gal trope. It's one thing for relatives to care too much if you're married, it's another for you to care so much you get weepy drunk.

One of the things I am most annoyed about in 'Girlboss Empowerment Land' is that we are now supposed to pretend like we are always enough and fulfilled alone, even if we're not. I am one of the people who is not, I will never be, that is just not how I am built to function. I am happiest when partnered in a fulfilling relationship and i can absolutely, 100%, even though I'm not even single right now, be brought to weepy drunk tears by people asking if my current partner is going to marry me or not. If I had to deal with that question at a family Thanksgiving I would one hundred percent need a handle of vodka and a bedroom to retreat to. Jacquilynne is right that this is a real emotion that real people experience.
posted by corb at 11:58 AM on November 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

As a Brit watching all this from the outside, what always strikes me is how close Thanksgiving is to Christmas. That seems to give you two family holidays right on top of one another, both of which (or so Hollywood tells me) it's more or less obligatory to attend. Surely you've barely got off the plane home after Thanksgiving before it's time to pack up and head back to Mom and Dad's for Christmas?
posted by Paul Slade at 12:14 PM on November 10, 2023 [10 favorites]

Paul_Slade: In the families I've been associated with, traditionally you pick one side to go to for Christmas and the other for Thanksgiving. And whichever extended family member cares most about Easter hosts that one.

As children grew up and got married and my extended family widened, it also ended up with various of the elder generations claiming different weekends or evenings around Christmas to host, so you could conceivably end up going to 3 or 4 different Christmas celebrations with different family members.
posted by telophase at 12:25 PM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also adding that if you had to fly (and weren't in college being kicked off campus for the holidays), you'd only fly to one holiday and you'd host the other, or just make an obligatory phone call to the official gathering. Most of us were within driving distance.
posted by telophase at 12:27 PM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I liked this and found it funny. Thanks for posting.
posted by senor biggles at 1:02 PM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Family drama is one of the many reason I started a tradition of leaving the US during that week of November and go somewhere else where it's just Thursday. So far, I've visited southern Sweden, Frida Kahlo's house in Mexico City, and the peace murals in Belfast. And my biological family doesn't celebrate Christmas, so no stress about that, at least.
posted by wicked_sassy at 1:15 PM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Just wanted to mention -- it's the Planet Slade Paul Slade! I remember your website! I'm not sure how, but it was lurking in the back of my mind until I saw your username! I'm glad you and your site still exist!

On the minus site, the linked-to article is paywalled. Try private/incognito mode to get around it. Once I could read it, it was indeed funny, and fairly relatable.
posted by JHarris at 2:07 PM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm glad you and your site still exist!

Thanks very much. I'm quite chuffed about it myself!
posted by Paul Slade at 2:21 PM on November 10, 2023 [9 favorites]

Speaking of a McSweeney's vibe...

Production Rider for Kate Kershner’s Holiday Visit Home Tour
posted by charismatic megafauna at 2:31 PM on November 10, 2023 [14 favorites]

Uh, what?
posted by gottabefunky at 2:41 PM on November 10, 2023

I wish my parents were still around to argue about what Thanksgiving should be like, though honestly my mom and I stopped celebrating all the Family Togetherness holidays a few years after my dad died. They all just turned into an obligatory dinner with Grandma at somewhere across the river that served really flavorless turkey in a vaguely nice setting. She stuck around and I'd visit her a few times a year until she died a little before the Trump years started.

She was always super accepting of whatever I was. Her response to me coming out as trans was "huh, I always figured you were gay, but this is new", followed by researching it and becoming a regular at a local parents-of-transes group. She asked me not to come out to my grandmother because I would have flown back off to the west coast and left her to deal with all the "how could you raise him that way" and "this is an abomination before god" and "you're disinherited" bullshit by herself, and I agreed with that plan.

----

TALENT (me) agrees to sit at VENUE (her home) and think about her loss. She may ask the VENUE MANAGER (her husband) to provide her with alcohol, weed, solitude, and/or cuddles to deal with these thoughts. Maybe she'll dig out some old birthday cards to "my fabulous daughter" from her mom.
posted by egypturnash at 2:53 PM on November 10, 2023 [14 favorites]

While I rarely, if ever, find the New Yorker "humor" piece particularly funny, the rest of the magazine is such brilliant journalism, a rarity in these days, that I'll give it a pass.
posted by milnak at 3:04 PM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

'lighting requirements'
posted by clavdivs at 3:13 PM on November 10, 2023

Milnak: I entirely agree. My mild snark in the OP was never intended to throw shade on the magazine as a whole.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:58 PM on November 10, 2023

I am dreading Thanksgiving because the day before is my mother's 86th birthday, and she announced to my wife and me that she, a chef-level cook since the 1960s, is now too old and frail to cook up a spread for Thanksgiving. My wife and I were like "let US do it", and she said nah, she's too old and frail to even enjoy it. We're bringing her Chinese food and a granddaughter, but it's still pretty clearly her last birthday and Thanksgiving, so it's real sad. She's great, and I love her even though she's absolutely the person who will come and open the blinds at 0630 to let air in.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:19 AM on November 11, 2023 [7 favorites]

Speaking of a McSweeney's vibe...
Production Rider for Kate Kershner’s Holiday Visit Home Tour

Wow. Those aren't necessarily so close that the newer article is full on copyright infringement but they are close enough that I would say that the New Yorker writer should probably be drafting his plagiarism apology tweet about now.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:26 AM on November 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

Ok well I stepped into it with my criticism of the single gal trope and I apologize. Let me offer this at least:

If your family gives you shit about your singleness they suck
There are definitely partnered women envying you at any holiday event
Because holiday expectations can make you crazy regardless of relationship status
posted by emjaybee at 10:39 AM on November 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah, that's deeply screwed up and I'm pretty sure the writer needs Even More Therapy than most NewYorker writers, which is already a lot. I enjoy The New Yorker, love the cartoons and most of Andy Borowittz, find much of the rest of the written humor to be weak. Humor is much harder than people think.
posted by theora55 at 10:51 AM on November 11, 2023

So as an outsider who lived in the US for a couple of decades, a small explanation for other non USAians:

- yes Thanksgiving is close to Xmas - the convention is that there is no Xmas advertising until Thanksgiving is over (though technically I guess Macy's Thanksgiving parade is a giant piece of advertising by a department store)

- Xmas and Thanksgiving being close together helps solve the "who's parents should we go to for Xmas" conundrum - you can visit one side of the family for Xmas and one side for Thanksgiving
posted by mbo at 7:48 PM on November 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Sometimes I wonder that if I had not lost my mother in my 20's it would be different, but the Generic American Family Drama Around Holidays feels so alien to me. But then the Generic High School Social Dynamics were also alien to me. (I mean, I was both not remotely popular but also relatively well-liked and the bullying I experienced was not in any way the Mean Girl variety.) The idea of having to drink to the edge of abuse to tolerate my family seems odd. I mean, yes, we have old habits that irritate like any long-standing relationship will develop but all these comedies make me wonder, do other people not just love their families and enjoy spending a little time with them?
posted by Karmakaze at 7:15 AM on November 13, 2023 [2 favorites]