THANKSGIVING IS A GROUP PROJECT
- Libby K. Hanaway
- Nov 26, 2025
- 9 min read
Updated: May 2
It’s Thanksgiving week! Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is, as mentioned in a previous post, my #1 favorite holiday of the year. It’s all comfort food, all gratitude, all acorns on the table, all kitchen and table talk, all Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and continuous football, all grandpa-y snacks like mixed nuts and Chex Mix. Thanksgiving gives us a LOT of topical material — food, traditions, thankfulness, mishaps and more, but this year's theme is the whole-group team-effort requirement of the day. It’s a relatively recent cultural development for which many women, in particular, give thanks!
As a history person, I always think it’s useful to get some historical context … in the case of Thanksgiving, not all the way back to its hazy roots in Plymouth, MA, but far enough back that one single person — almost always a woman, usually a mother or a grandmother — heroically rose in the cold, dark, early hours of Thanksgiving morning to start her work for the day. The day before — workday Wednesday — she probably baked all the pies, set the table, and prepared at least half of the side dishes with early efficiency, but at 4 a.m. Thursday morning, she still faced a marathon of turkey prep, additional side dish prep, and genius timing know-how, followed by teetering stacks of dishes and one final round of coffee. It was like a modern-day, all-uphill turkey trot every single year without the bragging rights and participation medal.
When you think about it, few were meant to pull off this level of production on their own. If you survived the “Fishes” episode of The Bear, you know the dark places this can lead. Our human brains are not built to multi-task, and the overlapping, overflowing challenges of Thanksgiving Day should have been our first clue. A traditional Thanksgiving table spread requires nearly nonstop work and peak time management, and even when everything seems to hum along smoothly for several chatty hours, those last ten minutes before everyone sits down to eat, when everything must suddenly happen at once — the potatoes! the gravy! the lighter for the candles! — can be a sweaty, scrambled race to say grace or raise a glass or dig right in.
A more collaborative version of Thanksgiving Day preparation — also once upon a time (but in this present time, too) — was likely still led by an early-bird woman, but soon she was joined by a bevy of other women in the kitchen, each knowing exactly what to do and how to do it. It was hard work, but maybe also a bit of a party — a sort of work party landing between an old-fashioned barn-raising and the decorating of a high-school homecoming float.
I’ve had this art postcard for ages and pull it out for display every November. It's a 1935 prize-winning painting by Depression-era artist Doris Lee called Thanksgiving. It hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago and wittily captures the industrious, whirly, women-centered teamwork of Thanksgivings past.
It did not take a modern mind to know that many hands meant light(er) work— and usually more laughs and better mental health, too.
A present-day Thanksgiving Day version of this painting might depict a mixed-gender, mixed-age, mixed-ability team maneuvering around the kitchen and backyard — maybe dad just outside the door checking the turkey in the smoker, mom inside testing the green beans, a niece mashing the potatoes, a friend filling water glasses, an uncle feeding the babies, a nephew prepping the kids’ table, and a daughter on the couch watching football, knowing she’ll help dry dishes later. There can be any configuration of family, friends, newcomers, significant others, and near-strangers working together, but our Thanksgiving Day kitchen traffic jams are based on the evolving consideration that Thanksgiving is meant to be a group project. ALL HANDS ON DECK!
Thanksgiving’s team-sport spirit makes the day more fun, and the aggregate skill, experience, and brain power really helps, too. Many of us are out of our depth on Thanksgiving Day; it’s an annual amateur hour for those of us who struggle to develop reliable know-how for dishes made just once or twice a year. Back in the day, before Google instantly answered all our questions, we phoned our mom (me, again and again), or a friend, or the Butterball Turkey Hotline, which remains a more-personal-than-Google godsend because not everyone has generational wisdom to rely upon. [And fyi, the original phone hotline has expanded to include live chat, texting, and email. Impressive adaptation, Butterball! But I beg you to keep employing real live human beings to answer desperate turkey questions because Thanksgiving is a VERY HUMAN HOLIDAY!]
With our sometimes-puzzling Thanksgiving Day menus, the kitchen might feel more like a Saturday night escape room, but with recipes instead of riddles. There’s a lot to solve and decipher, like … lacing a turkey? (I’m having a 1970s-Amelia Bedelia flashback.) Pooling and dividing group resources/abilities is a smart, sensible approach. Let the math minds figure out the timing, let the artists make the elegant charcuterie boards, let the cooks … cook! Working with pie crust makes me gnash my teeth, but for my mother-in-law, Judy, pie-baking is an easy pleasure. For several of our Seattle years, she packed an entire suitcase of pie ingredients (a checked bag from Chicago’s Midway to Sea-Tac because Karo syrup is a non-TSA-approved liquid), blessedly sparing me the effort and aggravation.
This commuter-style pie baking was a classic Judy move, and I continue to marvel that it is NO BIG DEAL to her to make five Thanksgiving pies for 9 to 13 people each year (pumpkin, apple, pecan, gluten-free apple, and gluten-free pumpkin — and only one of us is gluten-free). I bow down. [Side note: apparently other people fly with Thanksgiving dinner ingredients, too, enough that air travel expert The Points Guy has a full chart of Thanksgiving food-packing Dos and Don’ts. Helpful guidelines for a very small, Judy-like subset of the flying population!]
So you can defer to natural skills in divvying up the work on Thanksgiving Day or you can create an opportunity to stretch, come what may. Friendsgiving has been a great interrupter of the traditional Thanksgiving Day work divide. It’s usually a potluck, and it’s often younger people making their early attempts at Thanksgiving food; they are beginners who may not yet have developed their strengths but are gamely giving it a go. So great! One of my twenty-something nephews was part of a Friendsgiving two weekends ago — he made the famous family (non-stuffed) stuffing for the first time … and it was a hit! Three people asked him for the recipe. Yes! I bet he was internally beaming with pride and relief. I’m also picturing a picture of 12-year-old C learning to make whipped cream for Judy’s pies one year — she’s on her own in our kitchen after dinner, hand-mixer in hand, tongue sideways in concentration, neck craned to read the Betty Crocker cookbook on the counter. Thanksgiving is a growth opportunity!
Are there risks to a group effort? There are. The dishwasher will be loaded differently, the carrots may be cut in an unexpected way, the six-year-old’s pipe cleaner creation might become an additional centerpiece. All very low-stakes risks, more than matched by the communal gains. When we hosted Thanksgiving in our very small, not-built-for-flow Sammamish, WA kitchen (Seattle round two), like clockwork each year, a piece of glassware would tumble from our overflowing counters, loudly shattering to the floor — the literal result of too many (but also just enough) cooks and cleaners in the kitchen. The sock-wearing kids knew to freeze in place while a grown-up grabbed the broom. Like sharing our thanks around the table and swiping a finger in the whipped cream, it became just another Thanksgiving Day tradition.
After hosting the Hanaways for twenty-some years at our various stops across the U.S., we moved the party to Chicago in 2016. We all know our roles (and rolls) and execute accordingly.
On Wednesday night, I will dig out Judy’s food processor for the fresh, modern-style cranberry-orange-Grand Marnier relish and then make the not-exactly-fresh, old-timey pineapple-cranberry Jello (swirling with Red Dye 40, but for one day each year we do not care). Thursday morning after Rick's annual solo turkey trot throughout town, he'll cook the sausage and then sauté the celery and onions in gobs of butter for the cranberry-sausage stuffing. [Last Monday at Trader Joe's, I spotted a candle in the form of / smell of a can of corn. I gave it a whiff, but it wasn't for me. However, if they made fall candles that smell like celery + onions + butter cooking on the stove, I'd buy them by the caseload. I'm putting it in the suggestion box, Trader Joe's!]
Early Thanksgiving afternoon, we will all make short trips from the house to the car to load the trunk with our contributions and then drive 50 minutes north to Rick’s sister’s place, where she will have a five-star appetizer spread as the spatchcocked turkey roasts in the oven and the potatoes cook on the stove. E (who does not like to cook) will be at the cousins' puzzle table before dinner and will be on clean up duty afterward; C (who does like to cook) will be in the kitchen as a sous-chef, maybe in charge of the green beans and Brussel sprouts (plus she'll make her great guac on Friday); Judy will bring the rolls and her usual slate of homemade pies for this year’s table of 10, then make gravy in the final clutch minutes; and Dean will carve the turkey and manage the decimated carcass — the job no one else will touch — for future soup stock. There’s a familiar rhythm and predictable roll-out that helps make the day an absolute comfort.
It’s fun to imagine all the work parties happening on Thursday in kitchens throughout the country — all the cooking disasters (the disasters can become stuff of legends — we’ve had our share / will share next year), the whoops-excuse-me awkwardness of tight kitchen space, the quick bonding of a shared cutting board, and later, all the stories passed along with the dishes around the table.
My three siblings and families will gather together in Cincinnati for their own group project on Thursday — my brother goes big as head chef, and every other family member will be doing their part, too. Will my newly-experienced nephew bring the stuffing? For their gathering, for our gathering, and maybe for your gathering, too, Thursday will include a part-orchestrated, part-freestyle dance between the sink, the counter, the stove, the oven, and the fridge. The steps are always somewhat familiar and somewhat new. Crank up the music and get your work party started!
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAMWORK
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HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND YOURS!
EXTRA GOOD
ALSO LINKED THROUGH THE EXTRA GOOD PAGE HERE
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2025
1._GOOD ENTERTAINMENT: While you are parked on the couch for the parade and football games, you must also search on streaming for the 1987 classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles. There aren't many Thanksgiving movies, and we're so lucky that PTandA is among our limited options. Its sad, hilarious, human bittersweetness never gets old. With so many definitive scenes ("YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!" / "This joker's going to kill someone!" / "Oh, he's drunk — how would he know where we're going?!") and ("I like me, my wife likes me"), it's hard to pick just one to share. I'm going with the melted rental car pullover scene, which gives us two straight minutes of John Candy's comedic genius:
2._GOOD MUSIC: Thanksgiving definitely has the food, but it does not have much of a SOUND, musically-speaking. There are exceptions (despite its summer blooms, what is What a Wonderful World if not a Thanksgiving song?), but there are no clear musical expectations for Thanksgiving and that's just fine. Go your own way. But there are specific circumstances in which a particular song might come in handy. Should you be low on labor and need to recruit more kitchen help, blast this funny, swinging Cab Calloway song and watch your couch people flock to the kitchen to see what all the fun is about. By then you've got them ensnared and they'll be wearing aprons in no time. Try Everybody Eats When They Come to My House (lyrics here) — I am confident this will help!
3._A SPORTY KIND OF GOOD MUSIC: Thanksgiving weekend and college football and marching bands go together like turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. In this TikTok video below, The Associated Press recently captured two views of The Ohio State University Marching Band (my stuffing-nephews's alma mater) — one view from high in the stadium seats and the other an on-field GoPro view from sousaphonist Brayden Hyder as he marches toward dotting the "i" in the famous Script Ohio formation. This is a fun split-screen scene, and you might laugh out loud at the halfway point — and be wowed by Hyder's football field athleticism, too.
4._GOOD LAUGHS/EVEN MORE GOOD MUSIC: The Holderness Family material is reliably funny (and prolific — how do they manage that pace?); this year's Thanksgiving Day video is funny AND sentimental, which always works for me. Penn sings along as Thanksgiving Day photos submitted by fans flash like a vintage slide show. Yes to sheets on tables! Yes to scorched turkeys! ENJOY!
SEE YOU AGAIN NEXT TIME FOR ANOTHER BATCH OF GOOD
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Hope you had a wonderful day! Thanks for the Ohio State clip - my father in law was an alum and that brought back some great/fun memories of my introduction into the family! <3
Just simply delightful.
Happy Thanksgiving to the Hanaways! I am so thankful that Thanksgiving is definitely a group effort at our house! 🥰
Happy Thanksgiving!