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Thanksgiving we generally have dinner with friends. Not always turkey, but there is always pie and many kinds of pie. In early December we drive down to LA to visit our son and have a big holiday meal. Before he moved up the ladder at work he always worked the Thanksgiving week so that other people with families could have it off, and even now that he is in management he goes back and works the shop floor so other people can have it off. Then he takes a few days off in early December and we go down and celebrate without having to deal with traffic and crazed shoppers.
That it isn't the "right" weekend in November doesn't bother me at all.
Christmas we stopped celebrating long ago, too much baggage between the family religion fight and buying people things they neither need nor want.
In January, I drive around and pick up the live trees that people have thrown out. They hold their needles til late spring and smell really nice on the back deck.
We have no local family, so for Thanksgiving we've done pretty much all of what the OP mentions, on various years. And, a couple of times we've had Thanksgiving with the Indians (at the buffets in the casinos, which are pretty darn good for Thanksgiving).
We generally ignore Christmas, except that I like to put up Christmas lights, and our neighbors like to see them. And we exchange Christmas cards with a small number of families/friends. I splurge and buy fun Christmas Cards from MOMA.
For many years Mr. Bay and I always had to work on Thanksgiving Day, so now that we're retired, we prefer to stay home. We have some relatives in the area (a sister-in-law and niece and a stepsister), but we almost always decline their invitations. It's such a treat to spend the holiday in our own home instead of in the company lunchroom eating lukewarm catered food off a paper plate or at as guests in someone else's home.
A few days before Thanksgiving I make a roux and refrigerate it. The day before Thanksgiving I prepare and bake the stuffing and the roast sweet potato wedges, put them into serving dishes and refrigerate. On Thanksgiving Day I roast a turkey breast and reheat the sweet potatoes and dressing. After the turkey is done I whisk hot store-bought turkey broth and pan juices into the roux to make the gravy.
I used to make my own spicy cranberry-tangerine chutney, too but Mr. Bay has said that he prefers the tinned whole berry sauce. I serve green beans or brussels sprouts as the vegetable and pumpkin pie for dessert. I don't make rolls or salad any more because Mr. Bay and I prefer a lighter meal.
Because we're not early risers, we will often record the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade so we can watch it later at our convenience.
For the very first time, last Christmas we went to a beautiful and very well done buffet on Christmas Day. After spending countless years driving between family homes and the inevitable conflicts, we just decided to do something easy and for us. We had hosted a family get together earlier in December, cooked like mad, tons of cleanup and while it felt good in a traditional way, I think we've decided to forego the family get together this year and just stick to dining out on Christmas Day. Maybe next year we'll be up for the traditional stuff again.
I really dislike the 3 months of hype devoted to Christmas. I would love to just ignore it all, but as long as we still have one son living at home, I can't bring myself to do it.
Thanksgiving has always been my preferred holiday. I like to cook, and there are a few relatives around to share it with.
Our DIL is from England so Thanksgiving doesn't have much meaning to her and she usually chooses to work that holiday weekend so she will have Christmas off. Thanksgiving is not a big deal. Maybe some school construction paper pilgrim hats to wear with whatever we eat. We save the turkey for Christmas, which is our DIL's tradition.
We have Christmas dinner at our house and my MIL stays overnight with us to enjoy our two grandkids. It's pretty relaxed, we've been out on the lanai in warm weather or inside if it's cooler, like last year. I love the run up to Christmas starting with Halloween. Being with young kids makes it fun again: going to holiday parades, boat parades at night on the ICW and visits with Santa.
Our grandson is going to pre-school this year at the Catholic school his sister went to. We aren't Catholic, but the school has a highly rated pre-school and voluntary pre-kindergarten program for the two years before they enter public school. They have the Christmas programs we had as children in public school: all the non-secular and secular songs and a procession with angels, shepherds, the Kings, Mary and Joseph. It's adorable with 3 and 4 year olds. Public schools have none of this now and while I understand the why, I'm glad I can relive my childhood holidays for a couple of years.
So anyway, bring on the holidays. They are only what you make them.
growing up in a household where every Thanksgiving, Christmas,(and every other holiday) we were forced to eat in front of the television and watch football games, and could not talk except during commercials, and there were violent rages if a certain team won or lost, i loathed all holidays including Christmas and Thanksgiving. In college during a Christmas dinner I once walked out of the TV room with my plate to eat dinner in the (empty) dining room by myself, and got screamed at, "How dare you! Don't you know we are a family?!"
so once I got to be a young adult we celebrated these holidays with the TV off and my family refused to come to our house because of the no TV rule; and it was still a nightmare with in laws and fighting and every dysfunction on the planet. Once we stopped inviting the inlaws and other uncivilized relatives, we had fun taking our small sons to a buffet restaurant, they loved it, and we loved it and no cooking or clean up, and since it was buffet no wait to be served which is ideal with little kids.
Once I got to be an older adult and divorced, I stopped celebrating both these holidays entirely and it was such a relief! I stopped celebrating Thanksgiving because it is associated with the genocide of an indigenous population. I stopped celebrating Christmas when I found out I am Jewish.
The years that situations (business, family, etc.) dictated that we could not be with family or friends my wife and I treated ourselves to a lovely Holiday Dinner at the best restaurant we could find. Yes being with family and/or friends is always nice, but so is a quiet, lovely, expensive dinner.
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I paused on this one, lol.
