Don’t want to make him sound like a heal (he’s not!) but while we don’t host Thanksgiving, H does NONE of the food prep for any holidays! No interest. I get rolling eyes when I ask him to just please clean up his areas when we are hosting anyone. He could totally do without any get togethers.
When I think of dysfunctional Thanksgivings I think of the one in 1987, when I was to meet my future FIL for the first time. He had disowned my dh for dating me months earlier, and the first time I was to meet him – at a family friend’s wedding – he stayed home and told dh that when we went to pick up his mom that dh was to “leave his trash on the curb.” Nice, huh? In case you couldn’t tell, FIL was racist.
Anyway, by 1987, we were engaged, and future MIL said that I was coming to the house for dessert that night and that if FIL pulled anything she would leave him! That’s all that was needed. He was civil to me from that night on and sometimes even warm. When he misbehaved, I had no problem putting him in his place.
So that brings me to this T’giving. As I wrote on another thread, dh and I are flying to spend the week with our sons and ds1’s gf. Her parents are driving down Wednesday, and we are all sharing an Airbnb and cooking the big dinner together. Hoping it’ll be fun, and at the least it’ll be interesting. Thankfully, my now-late FIL gave me a great example of how not to behave. I’m thinking the kids might announce an engagement!
H is the bartender and dishwasher. He can’t boil water.
@wis75 My H grew up in NJ and is equally useless in helping to prepare for the holidays.
H and I split the cooking (in general and on holidays). He always helped his mother cook and enjoys it. When he cooks I sous chef, when I cook I sous chef. We have different things that we do - for example I handle potatoes and stuffing and he handles stuffed mushrooms and shrimp. My daughter also helps - the day before the holiday we are all crammed in my very small kitchen working together. Makes the holiday even more special. We all three cook it together and then we all three eat it together!
@garland, after enduring various shenanigans from a couple of borderline relatives for decades, I’ve just decided to remove myself emotionally from all the BS that comes with them. I personally find this disorder the most difficult of all disorders (excepting psycopathy, which I have fortunately not been associated with). These people just suck the goodness out of any situation that isn’t 100% to their liking, and I’m just done with it.
All that to say that it sounds to me like your SIL did you a huge favor. She has a lot of fricking nerve to make your mother’s death all about her, but that’s what they do. I get that you don’t savor ill will, but at the end of the day, it would be tempting to me to view the whole thing with a huge sigh of relief.
Best wishes to you and your family this holiday season. My condolences on the loss of your dear mom.
I must defend the honor of Indian boys, lol. My husband grew up in Bangalore, and his mother trained both her sons in kitchen basics.
He would make a great sous chef: he slices and dices vegetables with ease and is much better than ill ever be at preparing dal and other vegetarian dishes
Maybe my MIL was ahead of her time, lol, but she has my thanks.
I always go in to it thinking we’ll just enjoy everyone’s company regardless of politics and family dynamics (generally a group of 20ish with family and friends). We all get to agree that I fry an awesome turkey (s) - usually three.
But the conversations start and I have to pretend to check on something somehwere to remove myself from unnecessary drama. Like it the best when the crowd thins and our best buddies hang out for some warmed up fixins and a nice scotch. No one argues about that 
This yr we take a break from the long time tradition (beenf rying turkey’s for 15-20 yrs) and visit S in Barcelona. Wonder what they’ll all do for Thanksgiving.
Don’t you people argue about football on Thanksgiving? About being late because of football? About having to eat early because of football? About watching the parades rather than football?
We don’t have time for religion or politics because we have football to worry about.
Thanksgiving is always part of a trip my parents, one sister and I take, and we spend Thanksgiving day at the other sister’s house. Honestly it would be a lot easier if we had Thanksgiving at the condos where the rest of us are, but it’s the one time a year I go there, and they want to host, so I let it go. It’s an 8 hour road trip that I do annually, and she probably does 10 times a year, so if she wants us to do the extra 30 minute trek to her house that isn’t really big enough, so be it. My dad and I have similar politics that are very different from both b-i-l’s, but we just resteer the conversation if it goes down a road that it shouldn’t. They respect that and drop it.
I’m a bit sad that Christmas will be different this year. My dad’s family has always gotten together, I guess you could take it back to when his parents (now deceased) married. Even though his parents have been gone for a while, his siblings, my generation, and our kids still get together, at least those of us who can. We usually end up with 45-50 people at our house. We got flooded this summer, and the contractors were so backed up that they are just now working on my gutted formerly finished basement. So our house won’t be ready, and no one else is stepping up to host. Oh well, I’m hoping we can pick back up next year.
We all agree that the entire day revolves around football, @twoinanddone !
Zero football watching in my family! That’s something we all agree on. 
We do discuss politics. We’re all pretty much on the same page but we get animated about it anyway but we don’t mind. It’s part of our family dynamic.
To the OP, you must be very thankful you dodged that bullet this year!
I am from a very small family and there are not many of us left.
Out of our two children, only one is traveling home for Thanksgiving. So, it will be very quiet. Just the three of us. No drama.
I am certain I would not handle a lot of family demands and drama well.
No football at my house. No parades either. My husband and daughter do most of the cooking. I just do the stuffing and maybe the green beans. There’s a big deal lighting ceremony on Thanksgiving night and some people like to go to that.
One thing I am extremely fortunate about is that my H revels in being the sous chef. I just list what vegetable and other items need prep, exactly what shapes and sizes are needed , and in a little while, it’s all set out in bowls like a cooking show. He does other stuff (turkey carving, drink refreshing, general set up) but that peeling and chopping is really priceless.
I don’t have any thanksgiving follies, but can i share my story?
1994: I experienced my first thanksgiving in America – I was living with my sister who went to thanksgiving dinner at her bf’s family. I was working at a gas station while going to college. And as I was about to close for the day, my homeless friend came up and said what’s your plans for thanksgiving? I rolled my eyes and shrugged. As he walked away I said did you have some place to go? He said nope. Next thing I was driving him to Andronico (a groceries store by UC Berkeley but now no longer existed). We got a couple of turkey legs, some green stuff and went back to my apartment. I let him take a shower and clean up while I cooked. We had a great time, we were telling each other our life stories. My sister was mortified when I told her what happened.
Fast forward to 2001 – the year my D was born and we got our first single home. H and I decided that we will host thanksgiving until we are no longer physically able to. We told everyone to use us as their plan B – If you don’t have any place to go, come here. We don’t have any extended family members who live less than 1000 miles away, so family drama is never an issue with us. So people started to come, everyone from expat co-workers, to divorcees, to random friend of a friend, to family friends who also don’t have extended family members around just like us. We became everyone’s plan A. Over the years the group has rise and fall (but always between 12-30+ people), but a steady group of 4 families are still with us every thanksgiving. Now their kids are either in college or done with college, and they come back with their significant others, some come back as vegans (don’t get me started lol). We have so much fun. After dinner, the men do the clean-up, the women take a walk, the kids play Xbox in the basement. Once the dishes and the walk are done, we play board games and eat desserts. Some sleep over, some go home. We do this year after year and this is my absolute favorite holiday of the year!
Thanksgiving we always go to my sil’s. This year both of the kids are coming for probably the first time in 10 years. D never comes as thanksgiving is a hard holiday to travel for but this year we have her for a whole week. I’d say I was very excited (and I am) but she can be a handful so we will see.
This side of the family I think has less drama. My sil may think differently as my mil has lost tact. So as far as my holidays go, pretty stress free.
Now Christmas, my mom and sister and fam are coming. That is much more stressful. Sister loves to stir the pot and mom and I can’t help but rise to the occasion. My poor husband will find lots to do in the basement.
I live in Dallas, so Thanksgiving ALWAYS comes with football. One year, we decided if you can’t beat’em, join ‘em. We rented a large suite at Cowboys’ Stadium and had a huge spread for our families. It was so fun, we did it the next year too. Last year we did it on Christmas Eve.
Since then, we had a wedding to pay for and some other large expenses, so we are not doing it this year. D1 and he husband and our nephew won’t be in town, and my Dad was disabled the day after Thanksgiving last year, so we won’t have a big crowd this year. I’m kind of sad about it.
DH, S2 and my BIL have always done 90% of the cooking for Thanksgiving. I make the cranberry sauce and apple crisp. We always go to BIL’s in north Jersey since my FIL and BIL’s wife’s family live nearby.
Our family follies will be the wedding of my niece the weekend prior to Thanksgiving. Please pray that my brother (FOB) stays sober and keeps his mouth shut, and that his STBXW #2 doesn’t get wind of the wedding and decide to crash it.