Normally, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. It's not so much the meal itself I enjoy as having the whole family (or at least my dad's side of it) gathered together. As we pass around the food, we share our thoughts about what it is we're most thankful for this year. After dinner, we play a rousing and usually hilarious game of charades. And then we spend the whole weekend hanging out, taking walks in town, hitting the thrift shops in Princeton, playing games, solving the Saturday crossword together. It's a whole weekend to relax and have fun with family.
Obviously, none of that is going to happen this year. Hosting visitors from out of state is definitely off limits, and given how bad the COVID numbers look for New Jersey — and the fact that it's mostly small gatherings driving the spread — I didn't even feel safe having just me and Brian go over to my parents' house for an indoor, unmasked meal.
So we will have to celebrate Thanksgiving apart, at least physically. But I'm determined to keep as much of our traditional Thanksgiving festivities as possible. We've come up with a plan to play charades online (with the help of a Google form to submit our entries and a corresponding Google sheet to read them from), and I'm working on ways to do other activities online as well — Boggle, thrift shopping, even hide and seek with the kids.
The one thing we can't share is the Thanksgiving meal. I mean, we could Zoom while eating it, as we did for Passover, but we won't be sharing the meal itself. However, for extended family members who live closer together, there actually is a way to do that too: a socially distanced potluck. Just have each person prepare a dish, divvy it up into containers, and deliver them to people's homes. That way, you can all enjoy the same meal, even if you can't be around the same table.
My latest Money Crashers article is for all those who are having socially distanced potlucks this year (as well as for future reference for those who want to enjoy a frugal Friendsgiving potluck next year, when things will — we hope — be back to normal). It's a list of suggestions for dishes you can bring (or in this case, remotely contribute) to a Thanksgiving potluck beyond the obvious mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. Check it out here:
25 Thanksgiving Potluck Food Dishes & Recipe Ideas (Budget-Friendly)
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