Nearly 50% Of People Agree That This Is The Worst Part Of Thanksgiving
Poor Thanksgiving, it's definitely the neglected stepchild of the major holidays. Okay, so it occupies a slightly higher tier than does, say, Arbor Day — but like Arbor Day, which pretty much got replaced by its more famous offspring Earth Day, many Thanksgiving celebrations get nudged aside in favor of the day-after monstrosity it unknowingly begat. What would the Pilgrim fathers and mothers (and Pilgrim kids, for that matter) have had to say about Black Friday? Probably something along the lines of "Prithee setteth the rooster an hour ahead, Reprehensibility, pewter trenchers are 50 percent off on the morrow!"
Lacking the pageantry of Halloween and the presents of Christmas, Thanksgiving is a holiday that's pretty much all about food and TV. Kind of like Super Bowl Sunday, only without the games really meaning all that much and with turkey and that gross green bean thing instead of wings and nachos. For a holiday, there's actually a lot to dislike about Thanksgiving, now that we come to think of it. Although, tbh, we've already been thinking about it, which is why we asked a number of you to find your least favorite part of the holiday. Mashed conducted a survey of 555 people around the country and found out... Stop the presses: Would you believe it, people hate washing dishes!! Who would ever have guessed? But there's more...
Dish washing isn't the only Thanksgiving tradition people hate
Where there is much feasting, there will be many dirty plates, forks, and spoons, after all (except, of course, at Super Bowl parties where finger food and paper plates reign supreme). Nearly half of those we surveyed (49.91 percent, to be exact) found the dish washing so onerous as to be the worst part of their holiday. Another 13.87 percent were honest enough to admit that they tended to overeat and then regret the results, which leads us to wonder, do sweatpants sales soar on Black Friday?
The number three answer was football, with 10.09 percent dissing this Thanksgiving tradition (we didn't ask how many of them were perennially disappointed Lions fans), and coming in a close fourth with 9.37 percent was spending time with family. (Ouch. But please, all TV commercials everywhere, quit bombarding us with fake happy families, since it makes 100 percent of us feel worse about our own.) There are also travel haters (6.67 percent), and even some who hate the Macy's parade (5.95 percent). Which, if they're talking about having to watch it in person, we kind of get, since NYC in late November can be kind of nippy, but watching it on TV seems pretty innocuous.
Still more stuff that sucks about Thanksgiving
As always, we had an "other" category, but with this survey, write-in responses came in dead last with only 4.14 percent of respondents choosing a DIY answer. Many of the "other" responses pretty much echoed the above ones, saying "cleaning up" in general instead of specifically limiting it to dishes or the wordy "stress of seeing family that I don't normally choose to see" instead of simply selecting the spending time with family response. A few answers involved the main dish itself, with one respondent who doesn't enjoy cooking the turkey and a few others who dislike all the leftovers.
There were a few real Thanksgiving lovers in our survey sample, though, since we got a sprinkling of "none" and "nothing" responses as well as an "I love it all." The two saddest answers, however, spoke of having to spend the holiday alone at a time when it seems the entire rest of the world is surrounded by friends and family and festivity. Forget Friendsgiving, perhaps it's time to destigmatize Sologiving. That way all the family haters, travel haters, and even the cooking, cleaning, football, and parade haters can unite — separately — and all spend Thanksgiving on their own avoiding whatever it is they hate about the holiday.