The night before Thanksgiving in 2001, our entire household was exhausted.
My father was working two jobs to support our family, which had expanded to four kids when my youngest brother was born nearly two years prior. My mother was juggling raising four children and working part-time. Even we kids were worn out: I was laser-focused on tests and how eighth grade was winding to a close and high school would soon start. My older brother, Earl, was also probably tired from school, while the youngest two, Neil and Ethan, likely exhausted themselves after a crying fit.
In our household, we typically ate our big Thanksgiving dinner the night before the holiday. But that year, we had nothing prepared. Mind you, we were not (still aren’t) a family of cooks. This was not a household where the parents used Grandma’s 100-year-old recipe to resurrect pie crust. We had frozen pumpkin and apple pies in the freezer. The potatoes were in the fridge waiting to be peeled. The canned vegetables waited stocked in the pantry. The food was all there, but our family was far too fatigued to cook any of it.
We mulled it over in the living room together. If we were too tired to open a boxed pie and bake it in the oven, this clearly meant there was only one solution: We were getting takeout.
But which fast food restaurant would please everyone in my big Midwestern family? Which menu could pass for “Thanksgiving” if you didn’t look at the plate too closely? The answer was KFC. We were going to KFC!
There was something about taking a break from tradition that felt so freeing, even as a 13-year-old. We piled into the family van and drove to the store. It was snowing. Earl and I ran inside with my dad to order bags loaded with buckets of chicken and side dishes while my mom waited in the car with Neil and Ethan. We were laughing, trying to carry the buckets back to the car and working hard not to slip or fall on the wet ground outside. It was a Thanksgiving dinner that felt like it matched the personality of my family. We were (still are!) a little unusual, a quirky unit marching to the beat of our own drums while having fun.
That was the only time we ever had fast food on Thanksgiving. The following year, my parents got back into their questionable cooking groove and made dinner. But it never had the same jovial spirit as the KFC Thanksgiving.
I’m now an adult, and with Thanksgiving right around the corner, I have been trying to figure out what I should do regarding my own meal. Should I try to cook? Order a prepared meal? Go to a local restaurant and purchase a terribly overpriced turkey dish and some eggnog? It already feels overwhelming.
High food prices at grocery stores have impacted many this year. Some households are seeking alternatives to traditional Thanksgiving dinners. One survey showed that some people will be replacing a main dish of turkey with pizza as a way to save some cash. It’s not a bad idea when you think about how a 20-pound turkey now costs $6 more this year than it did last year, according to the USDA.
I close my eyes and think about our one-time family KFC Thanksgiving. The dinner happened decades ago, but the memory fills me with a sense of calm. It was different, and I like different things. The more I think about it, I’ve decided I’ll order a pizza this year. I can feel myself starting to get hungry thinking about the toppings and potential side dishes. Move over, cranberry and stuffing. We’re looking at wings and cannoli!
Most importantly, that year taught me that it’s OK to take a break from a traditional Thanksgiving.
A break is also an opportunity to put your own unique spin on a special day. Maybe a turkey is too expensive, or maybe you just don’t feel particularly inclined to follow tradition this year. You might order pizza for everyone and enjoy it while watching a movie together. Or you might go out to a restaurant to give your resident Thanksgiving cooks a break from the responsibilities of a home-cooked meal. Maybe you save some cash by celebrating Thanksgiving a couple days later, over the weekend — holiday-related goods are always discounted after the holiday, right?
Or you can take a page out of my family’s book and have Thanksgiving dinner the night before — the KFC order is optional.