There was a debate on The Shaderoom on whether or not family members should be charged $30 for Thanksgiving dinner. I personally have never heard of family members charging to eat food on a holiday and I assumed it wasn’t alone on this but there are people who actually pay family members for food. I think this is a weird concept because I see the holidays as a time to be amongst your loved ones, put your differences aside and just have a good time. I never saw it as something where you have to pay people back or make a profit.
People on Twitter were debating about whether or not it should be required you pay your family members back. While I saw valid points, I wasn’t convinced this is the right thing to do. The most obvious point was that it’s expensive to cook for a large number of people and it’s not fair to make one person or household to pay for that themselves. It’s very true cooking for 5+ family members isn’t a cheap or simple task but also it’s a known fact upfront and in some way avoidable. When you make the commitment to hosting dinner for your family, you agree to having people in your house to spend the holiday with you.
I think it’s weird that you would invite family to dinner and then say there’s a $30 fee to eat. A whole lot has to be taken into account when you do that. How are you keeping record? Are you charging for kids? Are people allowed to have seconds and if so will that cost extra? These questions can cause real issues within a family.
If you were doing Friendsgiving, I totally understand your decision to charge your friends to help you buy ingredients, but even with that I don’t think I would do. If I’m inviting someone into my house and cooking for them, I’m 100% okay with paying for it and I wouldn’t ask to be reimbursed especially if it’s my aunt who used to babysit me and help me with my homework.
Now I get it’s expensive but there is a way around spending hundreds of dollars. There is no rule saying you have to cook everything; people can bring a dish of their own. If you really don’t want to spend a lot of money you can make one dish and tell specific family members (depending on their cooking abilities) to bring the rest. Make it a potluck that you’re hosting at your house.
It can be really problematic to ask family to pay for plates. It takes away from the meaning of the holiday especially because money tends to make people uncomfortable. If you’re not comfortable spending money on food, I suggest not hosting Thanksgiving this year because asking family to pay will caused you to get side eyed even if you don’t notice it, it’s happening.