Post Thanksgiving Meal Analysis

One of the tasks my roommate and I have to navigate is how to handle holiday meals with just the two of us. We tend to get tired of the same stuff after several meals, so the whole 'let's cook big and just eat leftovers for a while' thing starts to go grow burdensome after about three dinners. Over the last several years, we've tried to find ways to make this work out better for us.

Smaller Portions

Okay, this seems obvious, but with Thanksgiving, it isn't always easy. In our area, it's difficult to find JUST a small turkey breast without it being expensive or questionable.  For a few years, we just tried doing chicken with stuffing, but even that got too big after a while. This year, we found a turkey breast small enough to suit our needs, but it still ended up being questionable.  It was pre-herbed with herbs we still can't identify. It wasn't BAD, just unexpected. I'm still not sure what they were going for with that herb blend.

Two Sides Only

This is a rule we HAD to do. Any more sides than two would cause more days of leftovers and we'd be sick of all of it. By deciding we would only have two small sides, we would be able to get through everything in a reasonable manner and not be tired of it in the process.

Now we've changed this up over the last several years. It's always 'sweet potatoes and something' though because we both love those at Thanksgiving. Now cranberry sauce doesn't count. It is an extra you get anyway. Same with rolls.

And here's a tip about this rule. If you find that you miss one of the other side dishes, have it earlier. I love that stupid green bean casserole and my roommate made it for me two weeks ago. I still had it in November, we did not have to dread it with all the other sides.

One Pie

This is a new rule, implemented this year. Before we always had two pies because our holiday pie tastes differ. The thing is, we're both eating less and certainly trying to eat less sweet stuff. We have been cutting back long enough to where this decision wasn't a hardship. We both knew it had to happen because neither of us wanted to face that much sweets. 

We picked a pie we both like and bought one on the smaller side. It was good and just enough to make the celebration nice and not so much that it made it a problem.  I've had issues in the past with really overdoing the sweets on the holidays. Admittedly, I'll probably still do that this holiday at one point or another, but at least for Thanksgiving, I didn't. Any reasonable handling of food is always better than my past history of awful handling of it.

I think holiday meals are a lot like sex in the fact that when it's best for everyone, it's due to there being a discussion about what everyone desires and what everyone can reasonably handle. At the end of the discussion, you create a plan that people consent to and go from there. It requires a little more honesty and connection, but in the end, it's worth it.