A woman has slammed her family after they told her she ‘ruined’ a festive dinner with the meal she prepared for them, even though she told them the menu ahead of time
You can’t complain about what someone cooks for you when you know what the menu is going to be.
With the holiday season around the corner, many of us will be planning whose turn it is among the family to host Christmas Day. This is a big responsibility that involves the daunting task of cooking the Christmas dinner, meaning you need to get the turkey perfect, the roast potatoes on point, and the gravy at exactly the right consistency.
However, it’s entirely up to you what menu you decide to put together. One woman from the US recently had this pressure put on her shoulders when she was tasked with making Thanksgiving dinner for everyone. Normally, this meal would consist of turkey as our Christmas dinner does, but the woman doesn’t eat “large-scale meat products”, so she chose to ditch the traditional bird in favour of a vegetarian menu.
In a post on Reddit, the woman said she made this alteration very clear “a few weeks ago” when she put her finished menu – which included a roasted vegetable wellington – on the family group chat. Despite knowing ahead of time that there would be no meat at the event, her family members still accused her of “ruining” Thanksgiving.
She said: “I came up with an alternative menu: roasted veggie wellington, an assortment of sides like sweet potato casserole, green bean almondine, cranberry sauce, stuffing (with veggie broth), and a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. I put a lot of thought into making it festive and delicious, and when I sent the menu out in our family group chat a few weeks ago, I didn’t get much of a reaction.
“Fast forward to Thanksgiving Day. Everyone arrived, and while most of the family seemed excited to try the food, my uncle and his wife were visibly upset. Uncle John kept making snide comments like, ‘Thanksgiving without turkey is like Christmas without presents’.
“I stayed polite, explained my reasons for skipping the turkey, and even joked that this meal meant they had extra room for dessert. But the tension didn’t go away. Later, I overheard Uncle John ranting to my mum, saying I ‘ruined’ Thanksgiving by pushing my ‘agenda’. Mum doesn’t care about the menu and told him to relax, but now I feel conflicted. Was it selfish to skip the turkey? Should I have compromised?”
Commenters on the post wondered if there could have been a miscommunication when she sent the menu, with some people believing she would still be serving turkey alongside the veggie wellington. Others agreed that she should have compromised and served a turkey anyway, as it’s tradition for Thanksgiving.
One person said: “I mean, you do you and all that. It seems an odd day to make this sort of choice, though. Surely you could do that in your daily life and not force it on other people. But since you chose to draw this line on a holiday famous for the preparation of a particular kind of meat, make no mistake, you did push an agenda here, and you were making some sort of statement and forcing others to be a part of it.”
Another stated: “If you wanted a vegetarian meal, you shouldn’t have volunteered to host Thanksgiving. I would suggest hosting other family meals, maybe Lent. But not major holidays where people traditionally eat meat.”
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