What Time Should you Eat Thanksgiving Dinner?

Video Transcript

"Hello. I'm Matt Cail and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to show you today how to survive a big family Thanksgiving. In surviving a family Thanksgiving, when the meal is served is critical. I've seen many Thanksgiving days where everything is going just fine- people have games, people have fun, they have snacks and then around five o'clock, people start to get grumpy and dinner doesn't happen to get on the table until eight because of whatever things got started late, "this" went wrong, "I forgot something at the store..." Whatever happened, dinner was later. People want their turkey Tryptophan fix earlier than eight o'clock at night. They want that early. So, I advise you to have your Thanksgiving dinner earlier in the day. Three o'clock is not too early. This will make sure that you have your act together early on if you are the cook. This will also make sure that guests arrive promptly, otherwise, you are going to start eating without them. I haven't seen a Thanksgiving dinner where people wait for all the guests if they are late. It's one of those few meals where it seems like people don't mind not waiting. And it's also going to make sure that the clean up and all the post-dinner stuff is going to happen relatively early so you aren't already dragging and groggy eight or nine o'clock at night on a big Tryptophan coma which is coming on from all the turkey you ate. So you are basically going to be able to get everything out of the way. It's going to put more relaxation into your day. The most hectic and potentially crazy parts of Thanksgiving dinner are going to be over with in the middle of the afternoon. "