What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

I’m going to see my dad. He lives alone and has really no family who lives locally, so I always go to see him for Thanksgiving, then spend Christmas the next month with my mom’s family, who lives just a half hour drive away from me.

My dad and I used to visit my paternal grandmother for Thanksgiving, but since she’s been dead for 10+ years, we’ve generally gone out to eat for Thanksgiving. It’s this super cheap restaurant that serves Thanksgiving dinner for just $20. The turkey is mediocre, the dessert (pumpkin and pecan pie cups) is delicious, but the dressing is quite nasty. But he always has insisted in going there because he doesn’t want to spend $60 on dinner at a nicer restaurant, even if the food is better. I’d easily pay that much if it’s for a special occasion.

Anyway, I said when he called a week or so ago, “If it were me, I’d just make it myself at home. I could make a better Thanksgiving dinner than that crap.”

So he challenged me. “You want to take that on?”

“If it means we don’t have to have that nasty dressing at the restaurant, sure.”

So I’ll be cooking my first ever homemade Thanksgiving dinner this year with my dad. He said he would take care of the mashed potatoes if I take care of the turkey. He said he’d also buy a cheesecake because he doesn’t like pumpkin pie (what’s wrong with him, pumpkin pie is delicious!), and we can skip the dressing because it requires a bunch of spices that’ll sit in his pantry for years and he’ll never use, and the pre-packaged stuff is just as bad as the dressing at the restaurant. And he doesn’t like cranberry sauce either.

So I guess it’ll just be turkey and mashed taters. With cheesecake for dessert. I’ll miss the cranberry sauce, dressing, and pumpkin pie, but I can eat leftovers from my mom’s dinner when I get back home. She’s not a pumpkin pie person either, but she always makes dressing and cranberry sauce. I Can buy my own pumpkin pie to eat throughout the week for breakfast. 🤤