Miss Manners: Can I plan ahead for leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner with my daughter’s in-laws?

[ermingarden]

Dear Miss Manners: I'm invited to Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws of my daughter. Is it rude to take my own to-go container to bring home leftovers?

And a burlap bag in which to take home the silverware when they are finished using it?

Comments

[jo_lasalle]

I think this entirely depends on previous experience. If you've been there five times and every time there were tons of leftovers being sent home with people, and possibly a shortage of old plates and giveaway tupperware, bringing your own box and avoiding the dance of "how do I get this plate back to these folks" seems pretty sensible to me? I've been in situations where bringing a box would have been/was helpful to the host. (Especially in a family like mine where ordering the kind of take-out that comes in reusable boxes just isn't much of a thing.)

If it's the second visit and there's no actual reason to assume this would make the host's life easier, and this just comes out of nowhere, then it will look really odd, I agree.

[ermingarden]

Agreed – it sounds like the LW hasn't done family gatherings with these folks before.

[fox]

I feel like at the absolute outside, LW could bring a container but leave it in the car, so that if leftovers are offered they could claim to have the thing and offer to go get it rather than do the tupperware dance in the machetunim's* kitchen. But I don't know how plausible such a claim would even be.

* For the unfamiliar: machetunim, a Yiddish mass noun meaning "child's parents-in-law." (Your child's father-in-law is your machuten; your child's mother-in-law is your macheteynista. The ch is in each case guttural, kh, not the consonant at the beginning and end of "church".) I was going to say that however among people who are likely to use the word "machetunim" this sort of problem would be unlikely to come up, but then I remembered that I am the product of a mixed marriage myself (half Jewish/half Puritan, guilt and shame), so never mind.

[minoanmiss]

That is a glorious vocabulary word. *makes a note*

[fox]

You may also be interested in mishpoche (same kh sound), which approximately means "extended family" or "clan" or "kin" - it's not quite all the way out to "found family," but it includes in-laws and exes and so on; my mishpoche includes my brother's wife's sister's husband, if you see what I mean, my sister-in-law's brother-in-law (or my brother's brother-in-law, if you consider them to have that relationship, which I always have done but I understand that there are regions of English speakers where two dudes married to two sisters are not themselves brothers-in-law; isn't that interesting?), or my brother-in-law-in-law, if you'll allow it. ;-) Probably also his mother.

[ermingarden]

Yes, it should definitely be a "Oh, what a coincidence, I just happened to have some Tupperware in my trunk!" situation if LW brings anything at all.

(What an incredibly useful word!)

[melannen]

Yes, at large family events like Thanksgiving my mother has been known to not just bring empty containers for leftovers, but to bring enough for everyone at the meal to take a couple! She does, however, not bring them out until the question comes up naturally.

(I think there's also a difference in how the meals are done though - in both sides of my family, even if the hosts are doing the majority of the cooking, everybody brings at least one side or dessert. So Mom can also go "I brought containers in case anyone else wanted to take home some of the pie I brought" to start the conversation. If the hosts were doing all the cooking and providing all the food, it might be different.)

(Mom is also known to buy a dish in the host's china pattern to bring her contribution in so she can leave it with them and it'll match, but I think that's just a Mom thing.)

[tielan]

Yes, at large family events like Thanksgiving my mother has been known to not just bring empty containers for leftovers, but to bring enough for everyone at the meal to take a couple! She does, however, not bring them out until the question comes up naturally.

Yes, we do this, too. (For Christmas, b/c we don't have Thanksgiving.) Containers in a bag that gets left with our purses, and when the leftovers are offered (they're always offered; we have oodles of food because everyone brings a plate like their dish is the Only Thing That Is Going To Be On Offer For Lunch) then we have our own containers and no need for extra plastic.

[likeaduck]

(Mom is also known to buy a dish in the host's china pattern to bring her contribution in so she can leave it with them and it'll match, but I think that's just a Mom thing.)

Wow.

[melannen]

I may have overstated that: mom has a list of everyone's china patterns in her purse and if she sees yours at Goodwill or the community flea market she will buy it.

It's just that if she finds one that's a serving dish, you specifically get it full the next time you host, instead of passed to you in a cardboard box in a parking lot at random intervals like it's some kind of contraband.

[likeaduck]

I maintain my "wow". That's such a specific kind of trying to be thoughtful/helpful/generous.

[lemonsharks]

That is an amazing idea and completely eliminated the "I want my dish back" dance