As we approach the Thanksgiving long weekend here in Canada, balancing the various demands associated with family starts to gather more importance. With multiple branches of the extended family in the same city, trying to balance anywhere from one to five turkey dinners, and the associated feelings that go with them, can be quite a challenge.

With that in mind, here are a few ideas to help get through this busy time.

Alternate years

If you are primarily trying to balance between your extended family and your significant other’s, having dinner with each family on alternate years can work. For example, if you have Thanksgiving with your family this year, then next year you have it with her family. This can also work with alternating events, such as if you have Thanksgiving with your family, then Christmas is with his.

Different Days

Not to point out the obvious, but on a long weekend we are actually presented with several opportunities to eat dinner. So spread the wealth! An added benefit of this option is that you get to enjoy several delicious dinners for only the cost of the gas to get there (and perhaps a bottle of wine, we don’t want to appear ungracious now, do we?). This can also work extremely well when combined with the next item:

Develop new traditions

This can be a way of not only keeping everyone happy, but also making the events more about the people you spend them with rather than the specific date it may happen to fall on. Whether this be a special Thanksgiving dinner a day early (or late), a family gathering and gift opening on Christmas Eve, or a recurring Boxing Day sale shopping spree, everyone involved can then have their tradition. This makes scheduling much easier, and as I said before, makes it more about you and your family, and isn’t that what holidays are supposed to be about?

Develop new traditions - option 2

This is similar to the item above, but with one big difference. For some holidays, perhaps you want to focus on your immediate family. Enjoy the long weekend with your significant other, kids and pets ONLY. Do things like picnics, walks in the park, hay rides, skating (for colder holidays) and the like. Build those traditions within your family, and enjoy them for years to come, and save the big extended family get-togethers for another time!

Host it yourself

This basically trades the travel and scheduling challenges for the work joy of hosting everyone yourself. This can be especially effective if you have children that require you to bring a lot of things with you when you travel. An added benefit, you get the leftovers!

Suck it up

And do them all in one day. Nobody ever said that you can’t have turkey dinners for both lunch and supper, did they? Okay, perhaps this one isn’t the best option on this list, but it is an option nonetheless, just make sure you bring the pants with the elastic waist.

Island of the Turkeys

No, its not a place (at least that I know of), but wouldn’t that be great? But seriously, if the holidays are going to be an extremely stressful event, then perhaps this might not be such a bad time to take a vacation. Enjoying a quiet weekend away from the city is always a nice break, and if you want to take a full week, hey, that holiday right at the beginning saves a vacation day for later in the year!

While this isn’t an exhaustive list, I hope it maybe gave some of you a few ideas for making your long weekend run smoothly. If you have any other tips that you’ve used in the past, please let us know in the comments.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Adam