VOTE: How do you celebrate Thanksgiving?

I could remember once – way back when my dad was a partner in a restaurant in downtown Brooklyn, we all went en masse to have Thanksgiving dinner.

Just didn’t seem right. Eating with a crowd around you. Being given a ready-made dish of a few slabs of turkey, dressing, stuffing – things like that.

But today our priorities are different. Everyone’s got too much to do, and many times the task falls to one or two people to feed a hoard of guests.

And what to make?

Besides the turkey, there’s appetizers – plenty of them; antipasto; some families actually eat pasta (which I find to be homeless); and perhaps some kind of soup.

Then comes the turkey with stuffing (2 kinds); yams; cranberry dressing – and God knows what else.
And let’s not forget dessert.

All that work – generally done days in advance – with plenty of leftovers.

So it’s no wonder that more and more families will not bother cooking and either order in; or just plain go out to eat.

But….and I say this cautiously.

Isn’t there a certain charm missing when the food isn’t prepared at home? Do you really want to eat someone else’s cooking on a day that’s reserved for family and the blessings we all enjoy?

I know – I’m making it sound like a Currier and Ives picture – which it’s not.

I watch my wife invite over throngs of guests, and do a lot of the cooking herself. So when I ask her why she bothers, she always tells me the same thing.

It’s a special day and just wouldn’t be the same if she didn’t.

That’s why I love her. And that’s why I get off my fat ass to clean up afterwards. Even though I'm curing under my breath.

Hence the question: Would you rather eat out for Thanksgiving, order in, or prepare the meal yourself?