Holidays Can Be A Pain
Even with PASed out skids! So Awesomeson has been deployed to Saudi Arabia until early April. And here in the US Thanksgiving comes rather early aka next week.
I'm pretty sure AwesomeDIL will not want to travel 2 hours one way with DGD2.5, stay at our non child proofed home for two nights especially after DGD had a rather bad reaction to a flu shot a week and a half ago, then travel back (lots of driving for me)
It would be more of a chore for her to come here and stay a couple nights but Chef thinks it's a good idea and he will not scale down the traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner because most likely it will just be the two of us. He wants the full work up but he will be working Thanksgiving day before the meal so will not be around to help me, as usual.
I asked if we could just do a simple smoked turkey breast seeing that I am also extremely busy putting the finishing touches on the rental property and going down to Awesome DIL's that week as well plus a number of other appointments.
Nope! He wants the full regalia of a deep fried turkey with all the trimmings and pumpkin pie. And he usually gets sick of the turkey shortly after the second day!
Aaaarrrgghhh!
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Oh and Chef compared Apples and Oranges
By trying to compare AwesomeDIL's situation with "When I was married to the Girhippo and I had to work all day on Thanksgiving, the Girhippo took the kids to her aunt and uncle's house for Thanksgiving dinner."
Me: "How far away was the uncle's house from your house?"
Chef then told me the name of the town they lived in.
Me: "So about 25 minutes away max?"
You should have seen the look on his face!
Maybe you should go to DIL's
Maybe you should go to DIL's for TG dinner. She'd probably be quite hapoy with a smoked turkey breast :)
Oh boy
This would put Chef's nose out of joint big time as he expects a giant home cooked holiday meal due to the fact that he works hard 7 days a week and deserves it!
Send him to Cracker Barrel
Send him to Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving.
Let him have his nose out of joint - what a brat.
Two of us = reservations
Two of us = reservations somewhere
Oh no!
Awesome DIL's family NEVER cook. They host either a pot luck for relatives at their house or this year they actually did it at a restaurant close to where AwesomeDIL and her brother with his wife and new baby. Chef thinks this is an abomination not to cook on Thanksgiving Day.
Don't get me wrong I love cooking holiday meals however if it's just us two I don't see why Chef can't settle for something smaller so there isn't that many leftovers but he is basically a giant toddler.
there are plenty of places
there are plenty of places that will cook up his multi course dinner and you just have to pick it up
my tv is obviously spying on
my tv is obviously spying on me, I just had two commercials for buyable Thanksgiving meals ... crackerbarrel and popeyes.. popeyes delivers!
Omg... Lol. That's hilarious!
Omg... Lol. That's hilarious! I would love to buy a done meal. Or magically have someone else cook it for me. Lol. Maybe I'll have my kids make some of the side dishes... They love cooking. In Canada we have Farm Boy and they do the complete dinner to buy.... Hmmmmmm....pondering..
Funny you mention Popeye's... I just had Popeye's a couple days ago. When I was a teenager my parents always bought fried chicken from the bowling alley on Christmas eve (super random.... Lol)... Because Christmas eve was always a busy day and because they wanted the night off cooking before Christmas day. And I always loved that chicken tradition. Fried chicken Christmas eve!!
When the kids were young, we
When the kids were young, we'd do pizza Christmas Eve. 4pm church service. Then pick up pizza on the way home (just before the place closed for the holiday).
I would tell him it's going
I would tell him it's going to be the more simple meal and if he wants the whole shebang he would have to do it (knowing he isn't able). He already knows you're going to be busy and tired so his request is insensitive. Besides the fact you already told him you wanted to make a simpler meal
There's also the route of just waiting til the last minute and getting the items you wanted for the easier meal and tell him you didn't have enough time and were too tired to make the fancier meal.
Honestly..... I would not make that fried turkey dinner if you don't want to. He already knows why.
It would be incredibly rude to force someone into doing this. Your husband can be very insensitive about these type of things. You are always worked hard and it feels like he takes advantage of your hard working nature to make incredibly selfish requests that benefit himself. While he seems to get out of doing anything.
Then you could always get a
Then you could always get a store bought pumpkin pie to go along with it. I'm not a pie maker.. I've tried and failed miserably and gave up but I know they take a lot of work and time. My husband is good with pastry but I am not. I'm more of a cookie person
Oh I LOVE cooking
I've already roasted off several pumpkins and prepared them for the pumpkin pies earlier on. I just think that having AwesomeDIL over would be too much. While Chef feels its an insult NOT to come over. I plan on making one pumpkin pie and I'm going to check the freezer for the cranberry sauce I made last year and possibly the turkey gravy as well to cut out that step.
In the past we have taken all the paraphernalia and fixings over to their house but they have a rather small kitchen and I'm sure Chef won't want to do that seeing that he is doing pretty much full day work on Thanksgiving Day.
I've yet to invite her I probably will sometime today. And then there is the question of the leftovers...AwesomeDIL eats like a bird and so does DGD. I do have a freezer and a vacuum sealer but Geez Louise!
I do agree that he is about 80% selfish and fails to listen to instruction. For example I texted him last week when I stayed an extra day at AwesomeDIL's to chem the hot tub. I specifically texted three scoops which are tiny little tablespoons. He put in three caps not three scoops two days in a row and my hot tub is still over chlorinated a week later. I've had to order chlorine neutralizer which should be coming shortly. I found the scoop floating in the hot tub so he just dumped it. He is often completely distracted about things that don't concern him or disinterest him.
Yeah holidays can definitely
Yeah holidays can definitely be a pain, especially Christmas. I used to love it before entering steplife.
The Thanksgiving feast is a lot of work. I did the whole thing last year. (Except making pumpkin pie from pumpkins. That is taking it too far for me haha). This year I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I've been surviving one day at a time lately so I'm not that far planned out.
If you're feeling overwhelmed, like others have said, lots of places sell a put together meal. Tell Chef to stuff it if he doesn't like it. Aside from that, would he know if you cut some corners? Ie: premade mashed potatoes and squash, store bought pie, ready-made stuffing?
Not helping = not complaining
Not helping = not complaining!
Good luck
To me on that one!
UPDATE: I think AwesomeDIL is going to bow out... I will just have to explain it to Chef in a way that won't hurt his fee fees.
Actually rather a relief because I have so many things to do next week. I will be looking for shortcuts though.
Can't say I blame her. Did he
Can't say I blame her. Did he really expect her to drive 4 hours with a toddler in one day?
Tell him it's a safety measure. Can you imagine trying to stay awake at the wheel after a huge meal?
He was thinking
They'd stay overnight. Lol they haven't stayed overnight at our house since they had the baby. That was when Awesomeson and AwesomeDIL were just a couple aka before children.
4 hours
is too long of a commute!
We discovered the nirvana of catering holiday meals.
Not a whole lot more expensive than buying the stuff and doing it yourself. And oh so much less stressful.
We started it when we would spend TG at Big Bend NP. We would pick up a full TG feast from Boston Mkt, a local cafeteria, or a favorite local restaurant on our way out of town on Wed. We would heat it all on on Thursday on the fire, camp stoves, or grills. Easy, tasty, and fun. We continued the trend when we moved internationally and started Friends Giving with international friends, and when we spend TG or Christmas with my ILs.
If the fixing the food is part of fond memories, people can make their favorite side dish or pies, etc...so you can get the together thing and the fixin the favorites with your peeps thing while avoiding the days of prep and days of clean up. We buy Chinette plastic plates and heavy plasticware that all goes in the dumpster.
I know, lazy. But.... I don't have to do the prep or clean up, and neither does DW. Though I do hear about it a bit before and after because for DW it is at least partially about the pain and suffering of working one's ass for for days.