When I was a child I was taught through T.V. wisdom that it was easy to shoot my eye out during the holidays with the presents my parents pretended not to buy for me. I also learned what it took to get my mouth washed out with soap through the same flickering screen. Outside of T.V. movies, the holidays taught me to sing, but also how to act out a scene by standing very still near a crib filled with straw. At that time, it truly was about the presents. I was just acting when I was signing and/or standing still. The acting bit was just me biding my time until the moment to consume arrived. When that time came I was all business. Consume the food. Open the presents. Play with toy. Repeat.
One memory that sticks with me from that time, beyond the pomp and circumstance, is the labor that went into holiday dinners. I do not remember the toys or who won the game. But I do remember my grandmother and her mother spending the entire day in the kitchen while us brats played in the basement. The dads? Well, my guess is the sites and sounds of the day’s football game lulled them to sleep. The moms? My speculation is that they were off devising ways to keep the kids from morphing into a daytime couch snorer whenever I grew up and came of “remote-control holding” age.
When dinnertime came I have memories of the family eating and laughing. Except for us kids. We were just shoveling potatoes and gravy in our mouths as fast as we could. Because that’s how you made the presents appear faster. The grandmothers smiled and laughed, but probably felt exhausted and had a few things to say in private to the you-know-who’s of the family.
As I got older, I realized that those memories taught me something. It was not the presents, the food, or John Madden’s soothing rock-you-to-sleep voice that defined the holidays. It was the people together in a room, many of which hadn’t been in the same room all year. That togetherness is what holidays are about and I would include the togetherness of a mother and daughter dutifully making an entire meal as part of that story.
When you fast-forward to today, people are much more likely to outsource their holiday meals than ever before. The kitchen labor in the home is just not as attractive of a draw today. Restaurant food is easier to obtain, more on theme and in some cases (and I’m not naming any names) better. Just this year, the number of consumers who plan to outsource at least part of their holiday meal was 39%. Why? Well, it is often a function of time. More time to spend with those cousins you have not seen. More time to chat. Less energy to expend on food preparation. More drinks to mix. That is a nice reprieve for those with the means to do it.
If you plan on outsourcing your holiday meals to foodservice this year, there was a subtle moral to that T.V. movie with the cussing, eye-shooting little boy. For those lost in my metaphor, there was a scene in that movie at a mall with holiday workers moving children through a line to see “Santa” and the look on those workers faces said quite a bit about the holidays. Those were the same faces my grandmothers made in the kitchen while they made the family meal. What was the lesson? Those faces were saying, “This will be over very soon and when it is I can finally relax.”
So, as you consider outsourcing your food, please remember that those serving you may have a smile on their faces, but they’d probably prefer to be together with their families just like you. Part of today’s holiday story is that now more than ever the people working the kitchens are doing so away from friends and family for strangers. With that in mind just remember a few simple rules when ordering and picking up your food each holiday. Be nice. Tip very well.
By the way, I never got that Red Rider BB Gun and I have yet to cuss at my dad on the side of a snowy road. That last part just depends on how much he helps his son in the kitchen this year. Happy Holidays! Enjoy your families.
For more information on how to get into the details, please reach out to Technomic at info@technomic.com or technomic.com. Technomic is a sister company of Restaurant Business.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.