COVID-19 And The Holidays--How's YOUR Family/Extended Family Doing It?

[Ben E Lou]

Well, Thanksgiving’s complications worked themselves out. The retirement community in which my in-laws dwell would require them to go into full quarantine for 2 weeks if they were to make the 15-minute drive to our house on Thanksgiving Day. (Us going there is not an option. They’re allowed a max of two visitors at a time due to COVID.) They willingly opted out, so no relational issues will arise from us having Thanksgiving with just the four of us.

Christmas is another story. They only have three grandchildren, two of whom are ours. They haven’t seen their other grandchild in well over a year, and if my wife’s brother comes to GSO with his family, there’s no room for them to stay with my in-laws, so it’s either with us, or we come out of it as the jerks who forced them to pay to board their dogs AND spend money on a hotel.

[CrimsonFox]

my rant belonged here

[cuervo72]

I still can't quite shake the mental picture of Whitmer wielding handcuffs.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I still can't quite shake the mental picture of Whitmer wielding handcuffs.

Hawt!

[Izulde]

Thanksgiving will likely be just another day, which I'm fine with. I hate Thanksgiving foods and always loathed that there were no presents. Biggest issue will probably be getting food. Unlike Vegas, I doubt anything here will be open.

Christmas I have no idea. I know last year in Vegas was the single worst one I've ever had. I don't know if I can mentally survive Christmas being just another day again like last year. But my cousin (who is also a never-married recluse like me) probably won't come up because he's in major physical pain every day that the doctors can't figure out (a lot of it is uncontrolled diabetes, but it's more than that - they can't just find the source). My uncle won't come up again until after winter. My nieces would probably come up, but because of their politics, I don't trust them to have been safe.

So I don't know how I'll get through Christmas.

[Brian Swartz]

I'm the exact opposite - I think presents are the worst part of Christmas and prefer Thanksgiving by far - Black Friday is my least favorite day of the year these days. What's going to happen with us now is that we are going to have a limited and abbreviated group, but Thanksgiving is still on for us. I think it's going to end up at probably nine to ten people total.

[stevew]

we cancelled thanksgiving dinner this weekend. Probably the best. Both of my nieces are in daycare, so no way of know if they could be positive/contagious for sure.

[PilotMan]

We've only had my Mom over as our family tradition, but she isn't coming this year. She will do it alone in her apartment. We'll try our best to mitigate it. Fingers crossed that Christmas will be ok.

[Lathum]

I am starting to get nervous just having my parents and the in laws here but everyone else has been pretty cautious so it is on.

[JAG]

Thanksgiving has always been the big family holiday for my extended family. This year will be the second time we didn’t do a big family gathering, the first time being when my wife was four days from delivering our first child (so flying was out of the question). Our Thanksgiving will basically have to be via Zoom this year.

[QuikSand]

we're staying and eating at home with the same miserable lot of five that have been here since March

Zoom with faraway family in sequence

will be fine

[Qwikshot]

We're eating with family ~10 people, plus 4 children.

We do have a turkey if T-day is cancelled at my brothers.

[revrew]

First of all, you gotta understand Thanksgiving is our BIG holiday, not Christmas. From childhood, we've told our 16 kids that you go spend Christmas with your spouses' families, we don't care ... but Thanksgiving is OURS. Typically, that means a house full of 40 people or more. But not this year.

For Thanksgiving, my wife and I are traditionally the "parent" generation, as we don't typically celebrate with my parents nor in-laws. But with our 6 adult kids and their families, we would blow the doors off our state's 15-person indoor limit.

So we are inviting just one of our adult children and her family for the traditional noon-time meal (they recently suffered a painful miscarriage, so we are choosing them over our other children), and we are hosting everyone else for an outdoors dessert afterward.

There's some minor hurt feelings, and everyone is disappointed, but it's how it has to be.

[Ksyrup]

After spending the last 4 hours in the kitchen, I'm seriously rethinking the calculus of Covid vs nuclear family only. The turkey will not be the only reason I fall asleep at 8 tonight. Luckily, I won't be missing a FB game.

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by Qwikshot

We're eating with family ~10 people, plus 4 children.

We do have a turkey if T-day is cancelled at my brothers.

We stayed home. My daughter and her girlfriend tested positive. They’re okay but I’m cooking Turkey for the first time.

[molson]

My girlfriend went to cooking school so I haven't cooked much since she moved in. I've always been a big proponent, with her, and my family before her, to get takeout, skip all the prepping, and use that time to spend with family and drink. I guess a lot of people really enjoy the cooking process - which is just something I've never been able to comprehend personally.

This year, I finally won out. She's working 10 hour days all week, including today, so we got takeout. And not even from a nice restaurant, from an famous Boise indy drive-through. They have a great chef there and do things like drive-through prime rib night. Big thanksgiving dinner for two for $40, and then pie and booze. It will be very relaxing. And I'm just alone in the house until around 5:30 or 6 tonight.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Still don't have a clue. I think I'm subconsciously hoping that a meteor will hit & I won't even have to think about holidays.
Which, really, is mostly how I feel about 'em in years that aren't 2020.

Hoping against hope to find somewhere suitable for the occasion that's open but I'm not optimistic.

Wife eventually found a Picadilly -- a fave of my mother-in-law -- that was open and an hour drive later, that was lunch. Food was fine, joint was not packed but was doing steady business, and the staff was absolutely pleasant from arrival to departure.

All in all, not bad. Mother-in-law was just thrilled to have only her 2nd non-medical outing since February so even if it wasn't fancy, it turned out to be a reasonable win.

[AlexB]

We’ve just had new measures announced - we’ll be good for a family Christmas (small family) but won’t be able to celebrate my brother’s or my niece’s birthdays

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Well, Thanksgiving’s complications worked themselves out. The retirement community in which my in-laws dwell would require them to go into full quarantine for 2 weeks if they were to make the 15-minute drive to our house on Thanksgiving Day. (Us going there is not an option. They’re allowed a max of two visitors at a time due to COVID.) They willingly opted out, so no relational issues will arise from us having Thanksgiving with just the four of us.

Christmas is another story. They only have three grandchildren, two of whom are ours. They haven’t seen their other grandchild in well over a year, and if my wife’s brother comes to GSO with his family, there’s no room for them to stay with my in-laws, so it’s either with us, or we come out of it as the jerks who forced them to pay to board their dogs AND spend money on a hotel.

The in-laws were supposed to attend an outdoor gathering tonight in the cul-de-sac in which they dwell in the retirement community. It's supposed to rain, so they've volunteered to move the event to their garage and house. IF everyone involved followed the rules at Thanksgiving, it should be fine, since it's still a quite closed community of people. That said, it's well within the realm of possibility that one or more of the couples attending tonight snuck away for an extended family Thanksgiving meal...

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Christmas is another story. They only have three grandchildren, two of whom are ours. They haven’t seen their other grandchild in well over a year, and if my wife’s brother comes to GSO with his family, there’s no room for them to stay with my in-laws, so it’s either with us, or we come out of it as the jerks who forced them to pay to board their dogs AND spend money on a hotel.

So, time to finally flesh this out.

OUR NORMAL CHRISTMAS DAY GATHERING
This would be at my wife's aunt's house (her mother's sister). Her mom has two siblings. The eldest of the three has a huge house and hosts a big gathering in Winston-Salem (25 minutes from us) for all three and their spouses/kids/kids' spouses/grandkids. If everyone attends, it's 33 people, coming from Greensboro, Raleigh, NYC, Florida, and Atlanta. That gathering isn't happening on as grand of a scale this year, which for devilish reasons does sadden me. My wife and I would have opted out, but the thought of my father-in-law--a retired physician who posts on FB pretty much daily ranting about the CDC and state health department's COVID guidelines--coming face-to-face with the spouse of one my wife's cousins--who is, um, a high-ranking epidemiologist with the state health department and who went there from..you guessed it...the CDC. That would've been kinda fun to picture. Anyway, I digress from the main point...

OUR PLAN FOR THIS YEAR
Because of the quoted information above, we're in the position of being pretty much forced to host. My father-in-law is 82, but was still working as an integrative pediatric physician (part-time) up until the weekend in mid-March when everything went crazy. He was planning to retire in May-ish, but my mother-in-law talked him into staying home on Monday, March 16th, and that was that. Since then--according to many, many, many FB posts he has made--he has dedicated over 400 hours to the study of Coronavirus and the medical response. Quite honestly, I think it's significantly more than that. They're in a retirement community and under heavy restrictions. They have a golf course in the community but he doesn't play. He exercises daily (recently was aghast when forced to wear a mask at the workout center and provided all sorts of charts and graphs and studies to the staff to explain why mask-wearing is bad) and is in outstanding physical health. Point being, the guy has nothing to do but exercise, watch Fox News (and lately move on from them as they've gotten to be too liberal,) study COVID-19, and post on FB about COVID-19. I just checked by pasting into Word so as not to exaggerate: in the last 30 days, he has 5 posts of over 1500 words (including one over 5,000 words,) all about COVID-19. He has 9 posts this month (in 7 days) about COVID.

Suffice it to say that if he had full freedom of movement, it seems like a virtual certainty that he would have had COVID by now, (but no worry, he has managed to stockpile a bunch of medications including HCQ, so he'd be fine!) but he and his wife are very much restricted by their retirement community, so they're not really a big risk to anyone else. The wild cards are my brother-in-law and his wife. They're coming up from Florida (few restrictions,) and they're a doctor and a nurse who believe it's serious, but I would describe them as loyal conservatives first, medical professionals second. In other words, they can't bring themselves to appear liberal. They eat out at restaurants, don't wear masks unless absolutely required, etc. My strong suspicion is that they'll play it quite safe the next two weeks before they arrive out of safety for the elderly parents, but I can't guarantee that. In the interest of maintaining the relationships, we're planning to go through with having them all here for 4 days. I'm more concerned for my mother-in-law (age 72) than anyone else in the equation. She's had a number of health issues, including asthma, and I've always basically thought that despite being 10 years older, my father-in-law is likely to outlive her.

The extended weather forecast isn't cooperating either. We recently had a Christmas here where I was outside in shorts and barefoot watching my daughters ride their new bikes, but it's trending quite chilly, so it looks like there's a good chance all nine of us will be mostly cooped up in the house for the better part of the visit. Ugh.

[cuervo72]

Good luck. If there's anything that I've learned from movies, it's that in these situations it's always the Black guy who dies first.

[rjolley]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

So, time to finally flesh this out.

OUR NORMAL CHRISTMAS DAY GATHERING
This would be at my wife's aunt's house (her mother's sister). Her mom has two siblings. The eldest of the three has a huge house and hosts a big gathering in Winston-Salem (25 minutes from us) for all three and their spouses/kids/kids' spouses/grandkids. If everyone attends, it's 33 people, coming from Greensboro, Raleigh, NYC, Florida, and Atlanta. That gathering isn't happening on as grand of a scale this year, which for devilish reasons does sadden me. My wife and I would have opted out, but the thought of my father-in-law--a retired physician who posts on FB pretty much daily ranting about the CDC and state health department's COVID guidelines--coming face-to-face with the spouse of one my wife's cousins--who is, um, a high-ranking epidemiologist with the state health department and who went there from..you guessed it...the CDC. That would've been kinda fun to picture. Anyway, I digress from the main point...

OUR PLAN FOR THIS YEAR
Because of the quoted information above, we're in the position of being pretty much forced to host. My father-in-law is 82, but was still working as an integrative pediatric physician (part-time) up until the weekend in mid-March when everything went crazy. He was planning to retire in May-ish, but my mother-in-law talked him into staying home on Monday, March 16th, and that was that. Since then--according to many, many, many FB posts he has made--he has dedicated over 400 hours to the study of Coronavirus and the medical response. Quite honestly, I think it's significantly more than that. They're in a retirement community and under heavy restrictions. They have a golf course in the community but he doesn't play. He exercises daily (recently was aghast when forced to wear a mask at the workout center and provided all sorts of charts and graphs and studies to the staff to explain why mask-wearing is bad) and is in outstanding physical health. Point being, the guy has nothing to do but exercise, watch Fox News (and lately move on from them as they've gotten to be too liberal,) study COVID-19, and post on FB about COVID-19. I just checked by pasting into Word so as not to exaggerate: in the last 30 days, he has 5 posts of over 1500 words (including one over 5,000 words,) all about COVID-19. He has 9 posts this month (in 7 days) about COVID.

Suffice it to say that if he had full freedom of movement, it seems like a virtual certainty that he would have had COVID by now, (but no worry, he has managed to stockpile a bunch of medications including HCQ, so he'd be fine!) but he and his wife are very much restricted by their retirement community, so they're not really a big risk to anyone else. The wild cards are my brother-in-law and his wife. They're coming up from Florida (few restrictions,) and they're a doctor and a nurse who believe it's serious, but I would describe them as loyal conservatives first, medical professionals second. In other words, they can't bring themselves to appear liberal. They eat out at restaurants, don't wear masks unless absolutely required, etc. My strong suspicion is that they'll play it quite safe the next two weeks before they arrive out of safety for the elderly parents, but I can't guarantee that. In the interest of maintaining the relationships, we're planning to go through with having them all here for 4 days. I'm more concerned for my mother-in-law (age 72) than anyone else in the equation. She's had a number of health issues, including asthma, and I've always basically thought that despite being 10 years older, my father-in-law is likely to outlive her.

The extended weather forecast isn't cooperating either. We recently had a Christmas here where I was outside in shorts and barefoot watching my daughters ride their new bikes, but it's trending quite chilly, so it looks like there's a good chance all nine of us will be mostly cooped up in the house for the better part of the visit. Ugh.

Ben, since he is stocked up on medicine, does he believe COVID-19 is a hoax, thinks it's not as bad as is being reported, or thinks it's bad but will deal with it if he catches it?

The part about wearing masks as being too liberal is one of the crazy parts of this. Aren't conservatives the responsible ones? Wouldn't wearing masks but being out and about show how to responsibly be out during this time?

[Edward64]

Just the 4 of us and a facetime visit with the in-laws.

I am tempted to rent a cabin in the Blueridge area just to get out of the house.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by rjolley

Ben, since he is stocked up on medicine, does he believe COVID-19 is a hoax, thinks it's not as bad as is being reported, or thinks it's bad but will deal with it if he catches it?

You think I’m reading these massive info dumps???

Joking aside, I have read some of his shorter posts to get the gist of where he’s coming from, (I mean, he went to Duke Medical, did residency at Johns Hopkins, and was a teaching/researching physician for over a decade, I’m not gonna just throw everything out,) and I’d say it’s a combo of 2 and 3. I think the bottom line is that he thinks it’s treatable to a larger degree than most people/doctors think. And he really, really, really hates PCR tests, whatever those are.

The part about wearing masks as being too liberal is one of the crazy parts of this. Aren't conservatives the responsible ones? Wouldn't wearing masks but being out and about show how to responsibly be out during this time?

I think you’re overthinking this part. It’s just tribal.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

You think I’m reading these massive info dumps???

Joking aside, I have read some of his shorter posts to get the gist of where he’s coming from, (I mean, he went to Duke Medical, did residency at Johns Hopkins, and was a teaching/researching physician for over a decade, I’m not gonna just throw everything out,) and I’d say it’s a combo of 2 and 3. I think the bottom line is that he thinks it’s treatable to a larger degree than most people/doctors think. And he really, really, really hates PCR tests, whatever those are.

It's come up a bit in the threads recently that as much as those in the forum age range are scared of infecting their parents because the elderly are at higher mortality risk, a lot of those same parents are pushing for risky family oriented behavior because they figure they only have so much time left anyways and they want to see their grandkids (or travel).

It's part of why I was asking about the vaccine effectiveness - if it's like other Coronavirii (and I think it will be closer to that than yearly flu vaccines) we should wait until the vaccine is administered, but if it's only temporary then we should start accepting a world with higher risk and understanding that some people even in higher risk groups can he allowed to make a decision that elevates their own risk.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

It's come up a bit in the threads recently that as much as those in the forum age range are scared of infecting their parents because the elderly are at higher mortality risk, a lot of those same parents are pushing for risky family oriented behavior because they figure they only have so much time left anyways and they want to see their grandkids (or travel).

We had the 2 college kids come back for Thanksgiving and they'll be back for Christmas. Not the exact same situation but somewhat close.

Just as grandparents want the kids to come and accepting a certain level of risk, I feel we are doing the same also. It seems we are saying, it's okay for immediate family members to congregate but not extended.

I don't where the line is, but honestly appreciate grandparents really, really wanting to see the kids and grandkids regardless of risk to themselves.

(But I would draw the line at having an extended family trip to Disney)

[Ben E Lou]

So, um, holy cow. After all that I posted just yesterday, this afternoon my brother-in-law's father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, and based on what we're hearing from my brother-in-law and his wife them so far, it appears to be quite advanced. They live in the same city as his wife's parents, and of course his wife feels the need to stay back and spend what appears to be the last Christmas with her dad. I can't imagine my b-i-l would come alone with the kid under these circumstances. I know there's no way in the world I'd leave my wife and go to Columbus for a Christmas celebration if her dad were dying. Given that they live just 15 minutes away, I doubt my in-laws will bother with spending the night here if the Florida contingent doesn't come. My kids are sad about the prospect of not getting the see their cousin. Just like that, our Christmas may have gone from nine people to four.

[Ghost Econ]

I just realized today that this would have been the perfect time for a Caribbean destination Christmas. It's just the 3 of us. Even now we can get down for 4 days over Christmas for under $3k. It's tempting just to avoid drama.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Damn, Ben, that's a lot going on all at once. Hoping for the best for you and yours.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Ghost Econ

I just realized today that this would have been the perfect time for a Caribbean destination Christmas. It's just the 3 of us. Even now we can get down for 4 days over Christmas for under $3k. It's tempting just to avoid drama.

Maybe set the expectation for next year?

After watching the latest Mandalorian episode, we watched a special on Galaxy's Edge. Told my wife that's where we are going to go next Christmas.

Have to have something to look forward to.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

So, um, holy cow. After all that I posted just yesterday, this afternoon my brother-in-law's father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, and based on what we're hearing from my brother-in-law and his wife them so far, it appears to be quite advanced. They live in the same city as his wife's parents, and of course his wife feels the need to stay back and spend what appears to be the last Christmas with her dad. I can't imagine my b-i-l would come alone with the kid under these circumstances. I know there's no way in the world I'd leave my wife and go to Columbus for a Christmas celebration if her dad were dying. Given that they live just 15 minutes away, I doubt my in-laws will bother with spending the night here if the Florida contingent doesn't come. My kids are sad about the prospect of not getting the see their cousin. Just like that, our Christmas may have gone from nine people to four.

They met with the oncologist today. Stage 4. Sounds like he'll be lucky if he makes it a year. They're definitely not coming.

Meanwhile, my in-laws (along with 44 others in the retirement community) got word a short while ago that they need to quarantine due to contact tracing of someone in there who has COVID.

[Brian Swartz]

That just sucks all the way around. So sorry Ben.

[AlexB]

Beginning to have a rethink with todays announcement.

I’m (just) in the Tier 4 lockdown area, and while I can go to my folks as they are my support bubble, I can’t go to my brother’s house where he is hosting.

As this strain seems to be significantly more virulent, and my dad is getting his first vaccine jab next week, and we all can’t get together anyway, I’m beginning to think that it might be best just to stay away until mid January when he will have had both shots and let everyone else relax (as much as they can) knowing no-one is breaking any rules.

My dad has been anti-breaking any rules since the summer, so my parents haven’t seen their grandkids for two months now, and vice versa which they don’t understand, plus my brother’s wife is a police officer, and these rules are laws now, which adds another wrinkle

It sucks a bit, but it seems that if I go to my folks’, it adversely affects literally everyone else...

[Ghost Econ]

We went ahead and met my mom/step-mom in their garage with the door open, and my dad/step-mom on their porch. Masked the whole time. Just got it over with without my sisters. There will probably be blowback from one of my sisters, but numbers are insane in my county, like 3x anywhere else in the state with the same population size. Just not worth it right now.

[sterlingice]

We'll be visiting my family outside a couple of times weather permitting. It's what we've done a few times now. Stay outside, wear masks, stay 6'+ away, no personal contact, but we get to talk and do things together - it's just a little different.

SI

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Ghost Econ

We went ahead and met my mom/step-mom in their garage with the door open, and my dad/step-mom on their porch. Masked the whole time. Just got it over with without my sisters. There will probably be blowback from one of my sisters, but numbers are insane in my county, like 3x anywhere else in the state with the same population size. Just not worth it right now.

Good idea but too cold in Atlanta to do that.

[Brian Swartz]

Our family made the decision today that the way we're going to do our Christmas get-together is that we aren't. Nobody's going anywhere outside of their immediately family that they live with. Not everyone is happy with it, but most accept it and there was less acrimony than expected.

[GrantDawg]

Dude. They are saying we might have snow Christmas Eve into Christmas day. A white Christmas in Georgia? Would be the first in my lifetime.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[Edward64]

Checked and my iOS weather app did say 40% chance of snow on Christmas. That would be cool.

[Lathum]

We are doing a repeat of Thanksgiving. Just my parents and in laws.

There is a little drama with my wife and mother. My wife has always made turkey when hosting Christmas. My mom isn't a turkey fan, and told my wife she was going to make a beef tenderloin and bring it. Now if my wife makes a turkey that means WAY too much food, so my wife isn't making a turkey and is less than thrilled.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Lathum

We are doing a repeat of Thanksgiving. Just my parents and in laws.

There is a little drama with my wife and mother. My wife has always made turkey when hosting Christmas. My mom isn't a turkey fan, and told my wife she was going to make a beef tenderloin and bring it. Now if my wife makes a turkey that means WAY too much food, so my wife isn't making a turkey and is less than thrilled.

TBH I'd pick beef tenderloin myself. Turkey is too damn dry. Ask your wife to make Turkey on New Years to compromise and keep the peace?

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Lathum

We are doing a repeat of Thanksgiving. Just my parents and in laws.

There is a little drama with my wife and mother. My wife has always made turkey when hosting Christmas. My mom isn't a turkey fan, and told my wife she was going to make a beef tenderloin and bring it. Now if my wife makes a turkey that means WAY too much food, so my wife isn't making a turkey and is less than thrilled.

Is a six pound turkey not an option?

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Edward64

TBH I'd pick beef tenderloin myself. Turkey is too damn dry. Ask your wife to make Turkey on New Years to compromise and keep the peace?

I can already hear it now. IT'S A CHRISTMAS TRADITION, NOT A NEW YEAR'S TRADITION!!!

[rjolley]

Maybe make turkey breast, turkey wings, or turkey legs? My sister-in-law has a good recipe for turkey wings that uses cream of mushroom soup.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Edward64

TBH I'd pick beef tenderloin myself. Turkey is too damn dry. Ask your wife to make Turkey on New Years to compromise and keep the peace?

It will be fine, she is just a bit miffed. Her and my mom have an genuine mother-daughter relationship so there won't be a problem.

Originally Posted by miami_fan

Is a six pound turkey not an option?

Not really. It's my 2 kids who won't eat much, I am a vegetarian, my dad is 90, and my in laws both just lost over 60 pounds this year and don't eat much.

Originally Posted by miami_fan

I can already hear it now. IT'S A CHRISTMAS TRADITION, NOT A NEW YEAR'S TRADITION!!!

this 1000X

Originally Posted by rjolley

Maybe make turkey breast, turkey wings, or turkey legs? My sister-in-law has a good recipe for turkey wings that uses cream of mushroom soup.

I suggested a turkey breast and was met with an eyeroll.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Edward64

TBH I'd pick beef tenderloin myself. Turkey is too damn dry. Ask your wife to make Turkey on New Years to compromise and keep the peace?

If your turkey is dry, you are doing it wrong.


I agree with the idea of making a breast. Unless she is just a big dark-meat fan that should work. Our tradition is ham for Christmas.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I suggested a turkey breast and was met with an eyeroll.

Then this has little to do with the turkey.

[JPhillips]

Whether it's a breast or a full turkey,

buy a good quality turkey
brine it at least 24 hours
cover the top in bacon so the fat drips into the turkey
don't overcook

If you do this it won't be dry.

[sterlingice]

We only do turkey breasts as there are just 3 or maybe 5 of us for Thanksgiving. My wife applies a stick of butter to the turkey breast during the process. It's never dry.

Just use butter.

SI

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Then this has little to do with the turkey.

Well, she wants to do what she wants to do, not what my mother wants. That being said my wife and mother have as good a relationship as a mother and daughter in law can have.