Dear Mom,
Thanksgiving is coming up and my wife and I have been invited to Thanksgiving at my parent’s home and the home of my in-laws. Last year, the parents held their dinners at different times and so we went to both dinners and made everyone happy. This year, my parents and my wife’s parents are holding their dinners near the same time. There is just no way that we can make it to both dinners. I hate to tell one of the families no, but I don’t know what else to do. My wife thinks we should go to her parents this year, but I’d rather go to mine. What should we do?
Sincerely,
Confused
Dear confused,
When my husband and I first married we ran into this same dilemma. Neither set of parents would change the time of their dinner; mainly because there were others coming who could make it at that time, and the parents on both sides liked the time that they had set. Suffice it to say, we had a decision to make. Obviously, we wouldn’t be able to attend both dinners and we had to make a choice.
The choice wasn’t an easy one but we decided to attend my parent’s Thanksgiving first. That year, they were thrilled, but my in-laws were less than thrilled. This is understandable. To soothe some of my in-laws feelings we decided to visit them in the evening when they served the pumpkin pie. The following year we had Thanksgiving at my in-laws home. We visited my parents later for pumpkin pie.
We’ve kept this tradition up for 30 years and it has worked for us. This year, my sister is putting on Thanksgiving and we are going to her home. The mechanics of holding Thanksgiving have changed a bit, but we still rotate every year.
And yes, there have been times when we couldn’t remember whose home we attended the year before and have actually made some mistakes in attending the wrong home (especially when we lived out of state and then returned) but all-in-all, the idea of an every-other Thanksgiving has worked well for us.
You might want to try it this year.
