Yes, you can change your Thanksgiving tradition

Thanksgiving has always started in our kitchen long before the sun came up. But this year, we’re savoring the holiday in a slower, simpler way, rather than keeping with tradition.

We left open the window of opportunity to host our 10th annual Thanksgiving breakfast as long as we could—but it’s not happening this year. 

When I was around 10 or so, I dreamed of building a one-room log cabin on my parents’ land, complete with a stove and fireplace. On Thanksgiving mornings, I’d invite my entire extended family over for a traditional, homesteady meal. I envisioned their faces filled with awe as I, in my Little House on the Prairie dress, pulled a beautifully prepared turkey from my meager oven to place before the humble table. 

Over the past two decades, there’ve been some adjustments to that dream. I live at the heart of a small town—not in a log cabin, but in a lovely 100-plus-year-old home. It’s an occasion if you find me in a dress (I’m going to be wearing my comfiest jeans on Thursday). And the beautiful turkey that took hours to prepare? Ha! If I had several extra hours in my day, it wouldn’t be spent by the oven. 

But hosting a cozy Thanksgiving morning became a real-life tradition we’ve kept for nearly a decade.

We really try to keep our home as a “just us” place to relax and exist, so there’s generally a lot of excitement around folks coming over for Turkey Day. But what few other hosts will admit is that preparing for guests comes with a lot of stress. From the cleaning to the cooking to the cleaning after the cooking, literal weeks of work go into having a handful of family members come over for an hour—and on top of that, we’re not morning people. 

Granted, there’s always a certain sense of accomplishment when Thanksgiving breakfast goes well. And to our credit, it’s always gone well—even the year our heater went out and everyone came in their biggest winter coats. Or the year I accidentally stayed up until 4 a.m. trying to mount a sliding door to our dining room entrance. There’s that little dopamine hit of “we did it” when the lock tumbles after our last guest leaves.

But in the days leading up to Thanksgiving week, I realized something: I just don’t feel like preparing for a celebration. There are a few reasons for that. 

This year in particular, I’ve found it challenging to stay on top of things. The start of the year held heavy bouts of depression, especially around the one-year anniversary of my dad’s passing. Throughout the spring and summer, after my husband injured his back, we spent hours at various doctors’ offices. Just as we started to feel like we had a plan for dealing with his health issues, tensions outside our four walls spiked in a way that shook me—and, honestly, I haven’t really settled since.

Maybe it sounds “dramatic,” but if that’s the cost of navigating this honestly, so be it: The very thought of hosting a big meal this year fills me with dread. 

There, I said it.

That led my husband and I to ask ourselves… Why are we doing this? Is it to have bragging rights of being the only folks we know who do Thanksgiving breakfast? Has it become a good excuse to do a deep clean to make our home look more like a museum than a place where we’re making memories? Or maybe it’s because it’s a tradition—and change, especially in a time where so much change has happened and there’s one empty seat at our table, feels like defeat. 

Ultimately, we came to a pretty simple conclusion: Traditions are meant to serve your family, not the other way around. If this year has taught me anything, it’s that we don’t have to push ourselves to the breaking point just because we’ve always done it.

Sure, there was still a little ping of maybe we shouldn’t have canceled leading up to the holiday week. But on Sunday night, as we sat on our couch in our cozy pajamas FaceTiming with family rather than going through the motions of a frantic late-night baseboard scrub to wrap up the weekend before Thanksgiving, we knew we’d made the right decision.

We’ve loved hosting this breakfast for our families, and it’s held some of our favorite memories, so I’m not saying this is a “forever” change. I’m not saying it isn’t, either. I’m accepting that it’s the right choice for this year, and that’s good enough for now. Besides, we’ll still see the same folks we’d have at our home at different houses throughout Thanksgiving Day.

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed and need someone to say this out loud, take it from me: It’s okay to pause, rearrange, or completely end a tradition. The world will keep spinning, I promise. And if you want to pick up that tradition again? It’ll be waiting right where you left it when you’re ready.

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