This Thanksgiving, be good to your host: Help Clean Up!

[tblue]

Men and teenagers and women guests, too. If someone has gone to all that trouble (and it's a LOT) to host you and feed you, the very least you can do is pitch in once the eating is over. This mean you, yes, YOU clear the table, rinse the dishes and pots, load the dishwasher, wipe the counters, and help store the leftovers, including that nasty turkey carcass. Somebody has to do it. Somebody always does it. When was the last time you did?

It will be tremendously appreciated by your Mama, Grandma, Auntie, sister, WIFE, daughter, neighbor or friend who was kind enough not to leave you out in the cold this holiday. And they will be even happier to invite you to return next year (without resenting you for sitting on your ass watching football while only one or two women clean up).

And here's another hint: If you start to help and she tells you don't bother, she's just being polite. Do it anyway, and don't stop. Until she physically takes a dirty pan out of your helping hands and shoves you out of the kitchen, she wants and needs you to do your part. As long as she is cleaning, every fed person over age 8 should be cleaning up, too. If you want to really, really blow her mind, shove HER out of the kitchen. Then afterward, you can all relax TOGETHER and have pie with that ice cream I'm sure you brought to share!

[bain_sidhe]

1. Hear, here!

Can't tell you how irritating it is to have all the "wimminfolk" slaving away to clean up while the "menfolk" sit around the living room watching the game. (I speak as a "wimminfolk," of course.) Especially after we all (women) slaved away to get the food ON the table in the first place.

[blm]

2. I hope this gets ALOT of recs. Simple human kindness and sharing.

.

[tblue37]

3. K&R!!!!! nt

[smirkymonkey]

4. Kick!

Holiday Pet Peeve #1

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. K&R

:thumbsup:

[tjwash]

6. thank you...we are hosting at our house this year.

I always try and help clean up when we are visiting, hoping that others will for us this year.

[frazzled]

7. Actually, please don't

At my house, at least.
We have a system: I do all the menu planning and cooking, hubby helps with shopping and sous-chef tasks (peel these chestnuts! can you clean up the mess I just made!).
Mr. Frazzled does the dishes (with some help from myself, her majesty). He has been well trained. With a few dozen wine and water glasses and the twice-a-year good china, roasting pans, innumerable sauce pots, gravy boats and assorted other utensils, I don't need a bunch of people mucking about in the kitchen. I always feel like it's a recipe for disaster. Plus, no one knows where anything goes, so I end up doing more work after three days of exhausting cooking by having to run around putting things away.

I'd rather have everyone sit around and relax and talk to me while the basic kitchen reorganization takes place. Then hubby and I get it all done before bedtime. I actually don't want people taking dishtowels to grandma's crystal.

I'm such a farking control freak. But really, come and be my guest. We invite you because we want you to enjoy yourselves. Besides, when I come to your house, I don't want to clean out your greasy roasting pan. We all do things differently, and I might piss you off by pouring the grease down the disposal.

Enjoy!

ON EDIT: I should note that if I were with family on Thanksgiving, I'd certainly be the first to jump up and help with the dishes. We have Thanksgiving with assorted family-less friends ... plus my son and his girlfriend. So my situation is a bit different.

[meegbear]

8. I do help - I clean my plate of all the food on it ...

*giggle* *snort*

[liberalhistorian]

9. Thank you, agree totally! It's always driven me nuts to see

people doing nothing to prepare the meal, enjoying it, then sitting back and sleeping or screaming at the tv football games while those who prepared and set up everything then do all the cleanup work. Usually, it was the male/female divide, but not always.

Last year hubby and I were at his father's house for Thanksgiving. I missed my family holiday gatherings, since I'm now several states away from most of them. So, I decided it would be nice to do the cooking and have a nice meal at FIL's house. All well and good, right? HA. Hubby and I together spent HOURS cooking and preparing, and I mean most of the fucking day. We were finally ready to eat and we'd set the table with the nice dinnerware, cloth napkins, etc. The meal lasted all of maybe twenty minutes, with hardly any conversation or anything like that, then FIL went right back to the recliner again, where'd he'd had himself planted ALL day, and proceeded to watch tv while hubby and I spent several MORE hours cleaning up. And barely even a thank you from FIL for all that work. Now, granted, FIL is from a generation where, for the most part, the womenfolk did all of the "kitchen" work and the men stayed out of it. But there were still things he could have done, not the least of which was to have made the meal a bit longer and expended himself on some conversation. At the very least.

NOT. THIS. YEAR. I made it very clear that that was NOT going to happen this year, period. I'm really not that crazy about going to restaurants on Thanksgiving, but that is what is going to happen this year.

[TK421]

10. We all chip in to help with cleanup....who doesn't do that?

I'm serious...I have never been to a house where that doesn't happen :shrug:

[tridim]

11. I always help, but it also bugs me that most people don't understand clean-as-you-go

It makes final clean up so much easier and less daunting.

That's something I learned as a line cook many years ago.

[dysfunctional press]

12. don't males cook or host in your world?

:shrug:

[Resuscitated Ethics]

13. Yes help please but be aware! There are subtleties to notice

Agree 100% with the sentiments of the post. A few additions for peace--

if the good china is being used DON'T STACK! Ask the host(ess) for special rules...
When clearing plates DON'T TOSS THE SILVERWARE! This is a real potential heartbreaker...

By all means bring rubber gloves for dishwashing: breaking them out demonstrates the will to help.

Sometimes when a host(ess) insists on NO HELP they have maybe had a bad experience or three with overzealous table bussers and plate clearers.

Maybe running interference for the kitchen CREW will involve rounding up the kids outside, or relining trash cans, or any of the dozens of forward moving HELPFUL things.... help make the cleanup THE party. Pick the music, laugh/joke/frolic. Establish your helpful creds early: like the transition between meal and dessert, or with the extra hot pot of coffee. Nobody naps until the host(ess) naps!

NOBODY but the oldest generation should ever just park with the bourbon in front of the tube. That is so "Father Knows Best" and selfish.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Thank you! This "women clean up while men watch football" routine is sexist

It's like my former roommate, who grew up washing the dinner dishes every night, starting at age seven, while her five brothers did whatever they pleased after dinner.

I regularly do clean-up at the meal program where I volunteer. However, both men and women do this duty, which is as it should be.