In my family, Thanksgiving dinner has always been between 2-4 in the afternoon - late enough to work up a good appetite, still time to have leftover turkey sandwiches for a belated dinner. I’ve always felt like that was a good time for us - we’ve usually had a ton of family there, so it’s a nice way to catch up with everyone. Then we have our late-afternoon turkey coma, and maybe go to a movie at night.
ElzaHub’s family has always eaten late - as in 6:30 - 7:00 PM. I nearly died last year waiting for dinner. I wasn’t expecting to eat that late.
This year, we’re unexpectedly at home for Thanksgiving - we tried to leave last night, and the snow made us turn around. So I’m cooking dinner at home for the two of us. I’ve made a unilateral decision to start cooking around 1 PM (we’ve already got a pre-cooked turkey breast that I had gotten for a Sunday dinner, but we’re using it today as our turkey), we’ll eat around 3:00, and we’re going to try to see RENT tonight.
So what time do you eat Thanksgiving dinner? I’m trying to figure out whose family is more odd:D.
We almost always eat around 2pm. This year my daughter is cooking also, and since she refuses to wake up at sunrise to start cooking, she is planning everything to be ready about 6:30. If she were having the whole family over, we would make it happen for 2pm. But I am taking my mom to my brother’s house for dinner at 2, and then my son and I are going to my daughter’s house at 6 pm.
Now my family all gets along, at least on the surface, so I think I win the oddness sweepstakes (so far) because we are not eating together. And we live only five or so miles apart.
We are having it at around 2. We have relatives coming from three hours away, and they’ve already left. They’ll have about three hours to visit and eat, and then they have to drive three more hours, so they’ll probably want to leave while it’s still light out.
My family, and my in-laws all have their dinners between 2 and 4 as well, so I’m assuming it’s the same for a lot of people.
We usually eat at 1 or 1:30, and that’s true for any holiday meal. But this year, that’s been pushed back to about 3 or so because we have guests travelling from northern and central California, plus I’m bringing a friend who has to work today and tomorrow so can’t go home for Thanksgiving. With work schedules and travel times, we’re aiming for 3 o’clock.
Mom always said it didn’t make sense to have the big meal in the evening, because she didn’t want to stop preparations to make lunch for everyone. So the big meal is mid-day, and then mom’s off-duty. Anyone who gets hungry for dinner can make a plate of leftovers themselves. Or, if it’s my brother, look pitiful until mom makes the plate for him.
Growing up, we always had Thanksgiving dinner in the evening.
When my siblings and I married off, we were then faced, with our new in-laws, with the in-the-middle-of-the-day thing, so compromised with 3 in the afternoon.
It is much healthier to have a big meal in the middle of the day.
But it always seems like such a let-down later at night, when the whole thing is all over with.
Over the years I’ve eaten T-day with probably 20 different unrelated families, as well as had lots of unrelated folks come join us at our place, plus a few dinners at our extended family members’ houses.
Seems to me there’s about a 50-50 split between folks who do dinner or tell stories about doing dinner early-mid afternooon (2-ish) vs at regular dinner time (6-ish).
As a data point, this year we had 1 unrelated guest, no extended family, and fork hit dinner at 6:15 after an hour of yakking, drinking, and gobbling horse doofers. Last year we went to a friend’s house & they did the 2pm thing.
Well, obviously we don’t have Thanksgiving, but the husband and I decided to have an American themed meal and a bottle of wine last night anyway.
Because it was just the two of us I made bacon-wrapped chicken breasts with rosemary, honey and mustard sauce, roast butternut squash and 2 kinds of sweet potatoes; garlic and candied (with cinnamon, brown sugar and marshmallows, so I hope I did it right). We had cookie dough icecream and chocolate cake for pudding.
We ate about 7:30pm, got a little drunk and ended up reeling off lists of random stuff we’re thankful for.
We had so much fun this might become a tradition…
The only thing I can think of to compare is Christmas Day- in my parents’ house it’s at about 3pm and my dad makes it, even though it’s his birthday. It’s designed to line the stomach so the drinking doesn’t take too much of a toll…especially if our neighbours have given us a bottle of homemade sloe gin again.
We were scheduled for 3, but then we noticed the redness of the drumsticks and had to do still more turkey cooking, and we ended up starting at 3:40. It was fine, and soooo yummy–nice moist turkey, tuna steak for non-meat-eating sister-in-law, Yukon Gold taters, yams, cranberry jelly, broccolli casserole, three kinds of pie and pumpkin puree with ginger. Wow.
When my Mom hosts at her place, we end up eating around 5:30-6.
If dinner is at my family, then it’s scheduled for 1PM. Actual eating will occur about 2PM.
My wife’s family does meals at about 4PM. Which IMO is a dreadful time for eating on a holiday event. We wake up when the baby does, lounge around in bed with her and the wife until about 10AM watching TV. Get up and make breakfast for all of us, make the bread I’m bringing to the dinner, and head out. By 4PM, I’m not even close to hungry enough to enjoy the spread that they put on…
It’s just another day for me. I didn’t grow up with it and it always seemed artificial when coworkers insisted I join them. At first I would give in, because they made out like I was to be pitied if I had to suffet the day alone. But now I just ignore the day and the pity and spend the day like any other day off. Columbus Day, etc.
We usually eat around 3, but this year, with the kids gone (cooking for their grandparents on the other side of the country) we ate at 1. Benefits: we went to the early movie (finally seeing Wallace and Grommit) and ate turkey sandwiches when we were hungry again, about 8 hours later.
At dinner time, of course. Dinner time being around 2:00 PM. Dinner, you see, is not synonymous with supper. Dinner is whichever meal happens to be the largest of the day. Supper is the evening meal. In modern urban culture, dinner is usually supper, but in more rural parts, dinner is often lunch. And dinner can even be breakfast or brunch, if that’s your biggest meal.
My inlaws do this time as well. My reasons for not loving it are different, though. If dinner is at 4, do you eat lunch beforehand or not? If you skip lunch and count it as a late lunch, do you then eat later? Not likely, since you ate a big meal at 4, but dinner in our house isn’t generally until 7, so you’re 3 hours off, etc.
I have to say, though, that lately the gathering begins at 4 but eating is getting pushed later and later, so it is more at dinnertime than a weird halfway-point.
I’m fortunate enough to have two Thanksgiving dinners.
My uncle, in keeping with precedent set by my grandmother, serves dinner at 1:00 sharp.
My mother in law, however, is a big football fan. In the 6 years I’ve been with the family, she’s always had Thanksgiving dinner on the table at halftime of the later game. We wait for the pies and cheesecake until the game is over.
We nibble on various tidbits while cooking in lieu of a normal breakfast (which I rarely eat anyway) and eat dinner around one or two PM. Then a few hours later, when everyone feels up to it again, we have some of the leftovers for supper.
Apparently this year followed the usual pattern. Alas, I cannot even get any leftovers, I don’t think. Oh, well, there’s always Christmas to get in my yearly turkey allotment.