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No Way

No Way!

On New Year's Eve, absolutely not. If I'm not too lazy, which I have been for the past 15 years, we'll go to the temple to eat a bowl of ozoni, but that's it as far as eating out on that day. Weeks are spent preparing the home before the New Year, where a week of cooking the New Year's Eve feast comes to fruition.

Independence and Thanksgiving Days really don't mean anything to me, as far as food tradition. The other holidays aren't celebrated.

One year Porgy and I were on our own (don't remember why) and we had one of the all time great restaurant meals we've ever had. It was a Thanksgiving Buffet at a place called Carmen Anthony's in Wethersfield, Ct.. They had the usual Turkey Day food but they also offered (in a back room) an amazing array of baked stuffed shrimp (to die for), crab legs,
and a dessert buffet to blow your head off.

Whenever I'm eating dried out turkey and overcooked mushy vegetables at someone's home for the holidays I often dream of that fabulous buffet.
I think next year we're gonna beg off and sneak away to Carmen's.

Home all the way - we have our entire extended family (between 25-30) at Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, the matriarch's birthday - I have to say though, I get a little crazy when the place is cramped and hot and the kids are running around playing tag and I am in the kitchen stick handling all the food - so I confess I have DREAMED of a nice, quiet, peaceful setting like a restaurant - then I come back to my senses!

No way.

We always have been blessed enough that we have been able to eat at home. Either our own or at a family members home. I think I might feel sad and a little dis-placed in a restaurant on a holiday.

No way. Have only eaten out on NYE, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day etc, but restaurants are always too crowded. They often have pared-down menus. Not the same variety. Staff is generally not happy to be there, and most importantly, restaurants frown on it if you try to take a nap after Thanksgiving dinner.

I disagree with the NO WAYs -- restaurants, especially a cozy, friendly place you've been going for years, can be just as nice on the holidays. Especially when family events are nonexistent, too stressful to bother with, or require excessive holiday travel. Also - everyone gets exactly what they want to eat and drink, there's no preparation (which is especially nice on holidays like Christmas, when there are other kinds of things that have to get accomplished), and people wait on you! No cleanup! No fuss! I love it.

We used to eat at home for every holiday, with my Grandmother making a huge meal...but with her getting older, she only has the energy to do Christmas (Christmas Eve was always an open house for my grandparents' business.) dinner. We usually have Thanksgiving at the Country Club they belong to...its not as good, but she is less stressed and able to relax.

as the grandparents got older the arguments got louder. we started going to a favorite restaurant for thanksgiving. they served a lovely buffet. christmas and all the other holidays were at home grandparents stayed home. mothers day was at the marriott. mom wanted the buffet. i prefer to be home with everyone. i love my family.

NO WAY especially during Christmas. I would rather spend the holiday cooking and dining with my family in the comfort of one of our homes. However, my birthday is Christmas Eve and my family had a long-standing tradition of attending Christmas Eve services and then going out to eat. I didn't really care for the dining out part of that tradition because 1) my parents made such a big deal of it, and 2) we usually ate somewhere my sister liked because, well, there was just less drama that way. When I turned 30, I put my foot down and refused to go out to eat. Man, you would have thought I had told them I was becoming a nun (no offense to nuns but my parents are dying for some grandchildren). Nine years later, they still get a little mopey after church when they have to go back home instead of a restaurant.

I can only remember one time when I truly enjoyed eating out on a holiday. I was 11 or 12 years old and my family moved to another state during Christmas. We all had to sleep in our sleeping bags by a nice roaring fire in the living room because we didn't have our furniture and, for some reason, any electricity. Since we didn't have electricity, we ended up eating at the local Chinese restaurant for Christmas. I remember that was my first experience eating Peking duck. The chef was so pleased to have patrons that he kept making special dishes for us. Whenever I watch "Christmas Story", I get a good chuckle -- fa, ra, ra, ra, ra!

Most of my life we would celebrate Christmas Eve at my mother's house and then just ate the leftover's Christmas Day. Then hunt down a bar that was open. This year because of the snow and how Seattle closes down when this ever happens, we plan on going for Chinese food Christmas Eve, and Christmas day I am going to light the barbie and grill a variety of things such as meats, pork, fish, poultry and vegetarian dishes (weather permits) along with latkes this wonderful bread servered with butter, a Caesar salad and before that I will have a massive amounts of nuts, cheeses, crackers, deli meats and dips out. Now on Jan. 30th I am making a turdunken, with all the trimmings. Of course there will be desserts too. I much prefer to do the holidays at home.

Hell no. Us folks who work in restaurants want to be with our friends and families instead of cooking for you. Don't don't don't go out to eat on a holiday...

There was a restaurant near here that did a spectacular Mother's Day brunch. That was worth doing.

Probably the worst holiday restaurant meal was the year my MIL moved out of state and she had the notion that her kids wouldn't get together if she didn't orchestrate it. So she paid for a Christmas buffet dinner at a bad Chinese restaurant. (This was before we also accidentally moved to the same state as MIL, leaving all of DHs siblings behind)

Not only was Chinese buffet a weird thing to eat on Christmas, there's only so long you can mill around a restaurant before you want to get the heck out and it was way too early for us to be calling it a night. Everyone ended up at our house afterwards.

I think the only other holiday-ish day we've ever gone out for is Valentine's day, a few times.

But mostly, I'd prefer to be home on holidays. Not so much because I like being home for the warm-and-fuzzy, but because I hate going to crowded restaurants when other dining dates and times are more relaxed.

Reading this thread after admitting that I ate out every Thanksgiving at Squire's Pub with my family as a kid makes me realize how truly screwed up my family was as was the fact that my favorite Thanksgiving food was the dark chocolate turkey-shaped lollypop given to children after the meal.

no way. that concept just seems so foreign to me.

i know were talking about the customer, but what about the poor poor resturant owner who hopes if he can just make it to the holidays, he can keep it open a little while longer in this ever changing economy.

huge bring-the-whole-family-to-the-restaurant things have always been for birthdays, and only important ones, meaning at least one generation above mine.

holidays always run by the matriarch, at the grandparents house, with abundant dinner in the middle of the afternoon.

This one struck a chord with me, as I've missed dining with family on most major holidays for many years due to the job. Ironically, this Christmas Eve, I took my family to a top-tier steakhouse for a big family dinner -- it was a total change of pace, in that I was actually present, and that we were dining before 8 p.m. :) As expected, the service and food were stellar, and it was great to have everyone together. It was nice, too, to be able to go back home and just hang out, sans dishes and clean-up.

I can see the merit in both situations: the family dinner and the "waited-on" service. I'd do it again on Christmas Eve -- but perhaps not on the holiday itself.