AITA for telling my family that if they want Thanksgiving, they’ll have to get off their asses and plan it?

A Redditor asks if they were wrong for refusing to take on the responsibility of planning Thanksgiving after no one in their family discussed it beforehand. Traditionally, their family attends a large Thanksgiving gathering hosted by relatives.

However, this year’s plans fell through due to circumstances, and no one mentioned doing something at home until the last minute, when the husband asked if they had a turkey. The Redditor, who works full-time and splits household responsibilities with their husband, pushed back, saying it wasn’t solely their job to plan the holiday. This led to an argument with the husband accusing them of ruining Thanksgiving, while the kids expressed indifference toward the holiday meal. Read the full story below to see how things unfolded.

‘ AITA for telling my family that if they want Thanksgiving, they’ll have to get off their asses and plan it?’

Usually for Thanksgiving, we head out to go see family. Someone else always hosts (we typically help “sponsor” the host by paying for clean-up, etc, our home is just too small to host the 30+ folks who typically show up through the day). This year that’s obviously not happening.

Other than us talking about not doing the usual, Thanksgiving didn’t come up until yesterday. My kids have the week off from online school, and I was doing a puzzle with them before dinner when my husband walks in after work and says: “So did we get a turkey?”

I looked at him and said “Well, I know I didn’t. Did you?” He stared at me blankly and said “No. What do you mean? Do we need to get one still? Is it being delivered?” I shrugged and said “I don’t know nothing about no turkey.”

The kids and he looked so confused, so I helped them along and said “I didn’t buy anything. I didn’t plan anything. No one said anything to me about Thanksgiving. Nobody offered to help meal plan, cook anything, do anything.”

He blew up yelling at me about how I should have obviously known. I said, why? I’ve literally never planned or made a Thanksgiving dinner in my life. The most I’ve ever done was help clean up or maybe peel the potato. I asked him why didn’t ***HE*** plan anything, why didn’t the kids plan anything? Why is everyone waiting until the last minute and dumping it on me?

He just sputtered and yelled and stormed off to his “office” and left me with the kids. We all had dinner, the kids cleaned up, and I was relaxing with some wine and a book after they all went to bed. My husband tore into me about how he can’t believe I left this all to the last minute, now there will be no Thanksgiving, how could I know be heartbroken to do this to the kids, etc.

So I just looked at him and said “Why didn’t you plan? Why did you wait to the last minute to ask me?” He told me I was being a f**king b**ch for no reason and stomped off to go sleep in his office. He left without saying a word this morning. I followed up with my kids and asked them if they wanted Thanksgiving. They said they didn’t care because the food isn’t that good most of the time anyway.

Before you ask, yup, I work as well. We split chores but there’s no hardline. I do some, he does some. We both cook, and the oldest cooks as well. I just don’t get why Thanksgiving is on my plate. Why, just because I’m a woman? Lmao f**k that.. AITA?

**ETA:** Thanks for the judgments, all. A lot of people seem to think that my kids are like, toddlers or something. They’re old enough to help make the menu for dinners, help with cooking, etc. It’s weird how many people came up with info here, like I was “getting down on the floor playing” rather than me and the kids… sitting at the table doing a puzzle.

Anyway, I told my husband that if he wants to do some traditional Thanksgiving with all the fattening, carby, salty, beige food, he can go ahead and plan it and I’ll help in the same capacity as always. If he wants me and the kids to cook something together (aka a normal, average Thursday) I’ll continue with what was scheduled.

The kids genuinely do not care. Thanksgiving doesn’t mean anything to them. One of them has been asking for us to stay home for years. One of them barely touches the food as it, and the other one only likes to go so she can see her cousins, and she sees them all the time anyway.

The middle kid already dug out another puzzle for us and they’re just happy they’re off school.. Also, we don’t do Christmas. Check your biases, folks. Don’t leap to conclusions based on what you *want* to have happened.

Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:

nano-cola −  Heavy NTA. Also the way you handled this conversation is absolutely how I would have. I laughed out loud at “Well I know I didn’t. Did you?” Also you all live in the same house and share the same kitchen I’m sure he would have noticed a turkey in the fridge if there was one. I’m sorry your husband has child-like temper tantrums.

EnterTheBugbear −  NTA. Jeezus-pleezus, the stones on this man. Sounds like someone has some sexism jammed into that turkey where the stuffing oughta be, honestly. If it was a situation where you were a SAHP **and** did all or even most of the cooking then it could’ve been a mild Y.T.A (per your post I see that you share those duties, so you’re morally WELL in the clear there)

but telling your wife she’s being a “f**king b**ch” for calmly asking why you weren’t allowed to do the exact same thing he was doing – aka, nothing – and then literally STOMPING OFF TO HIS ROOM…good god. That sounds, to put it mildly, extremely unattractive in a life partner.

[Reddit User] −  NTA. If he’s so concerned about having Thanksgiving dinner he can cook it or go buy a platter from somewhere. If you’ve never done it before why would he just assume you would? He should’ve talked about it with you if that’s what he wanted so you guys could figure it out together. Literally all it is is themed food. It’s not like you cancelled Christmas and you can eat boxed macaroni while being thankful for stuff.

cocomimi3 −  “I don’t know nothing about no turkey.” Love that line, NTA.

eternal_entropy −  NTA. A phrase I HATE more than anything is ‘it goes without saying’, because often it really doesn’t. This is the attitude your husband has taken with you and Thanksgiving. Dumping all of this on you and blaming you is wrong. If he had come to you and discussed it, then this would be different. But he hasn’t, and is acting like an arsehole.

[Reddit User] −  Info: how did you get to this point with at least one person assuming there would be Thanksgiving dinner, and nobody brought it up a single time until just now? Do you and SO like not talk about things? Also partners should 100% never speak to each other the way he did to you (namely the name-calling bit).

goPACK17 −  Ya, your suspicions are correct, sounds pretty sexist to me, NTA. It’s not too late at all to do Thanksgiving. You can literally go to your nearest grocery store right now and buy some potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and a turkey. You have 48 hours, you can even get a frozen one and thaw it in time; don’t even need a fresh one!

AITAthrowawayeeeee −  NTA he expects that you’d take care of these things because you’re a woman. I don’t quite understand why men can be so useless sometimes but here’s another one, proving to me it’s better to not be married.

Sarothias −  Personally going with a light ESH – no doubt the husband is an AH though in regards to this). Only saying that because if Thanksgiving isn’t being done (and it is done annually for your family, be it at someone else’s house), I feel you are both equally responsible to have planned something or at bare minimum asked your children if they wanted a Thanksgiving /shrug

Yellowsunflowerlover −  NTA. Girl this post made me laugh. I love it. **I looked at him and said “Well, I know I didn’t. Did you?”** Hahaha get wrecked.

Do you think the Redditor was right to stand their ground and push back against outdated expectations, or should they have stepped in to save Thanksgiving for the family? How would you handle a situation where everyone assumes you’ll take charge without asking? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!