Thanksgiving is my cherished holiday. I relish the cooking, the chatter, the parade, and the additional side dishes that no one really has room for. Each year, I express to my parents my desire to “go bigger”: more food, more guests, more traditions. And annually, my mother gazes at me with a blend of affection and frustration and utters some variation of, “Can we please do a little less this year? My greatest happiness is seeing you unwind.”

She resides just seven minutes away from me. I frequently visit my parents. I’m not arriving once a year, straining to see them across a turkey, pondering whether they’ve aged. I perceive the daily changes live.

And yet, somehow, Thanksgiving consistently manages to highlight aging and caregiving in high definition.

[Image of multi-generational family at Thanksgiving]

As a geriatric psychiatrist and an only child, I occupy an unusual position at that table. I am both the daughter who desires to recreate every cherished tradition and the physician who realizes that my parents’ energy, mobility, and health are not unlimited resources. My mother’s request for me to “do less” is not a sign of laziness; it’s the insight of someone who comprehends that expended energy can’t always be regained anymore and that my time and rest hold significance too.

It has taken me time to understand that Thanksgiving can be more than just a façade of “everything’s okay” with a lovely centerpiece. It can also serve as a gentle, built-in checkpoint: an opportunity to genuinely assess how our aging parents are faring and whether we have a strategy or just more pie.

The holiday as an unintended health evaluation:

Even if you see your parents often, Thanksgiving stands apart.

The day demands more from everyone: more standing, more multitasking, more social interaction, more logistics. It acts as a natural stress test.

As physicians, we’re trained to notice subtle shifts. On Thanksgiving, you don’t need a formal cognitive assessment to realize that your dad keeps losing track of the conversation or that your mom is suddenly assigning tasks she once managed effortlessly. You don’t require a gait analysis to observe that the “quick trip down to the garage” now takes longer and appears more hazardous.

But here’s the catch: The moment you recognize those factors, you transition from being merely a host or a guest. You become the family’s unofficial risk-management team.

– “Do you think Dad should still be driving at night?”
– “Mom almost dropped the casserole; is this an isolated incident or a trend?”
– “We really need to discuss what would occur if one of them fell ill.”

For many adult children, whether physicians or not, Thanksgiving turns into the day when all of those concerns surface. For some, it’s the only occasion the entire family is physically together in one space to consider those thoughts.

The dilemma is that we often attempt to cram all that existential weight into a single overloaded day, amidst the stuffing and the pumpkin pie. It’s no surprise everyone ends up irritable, defensive, or in tears.

Why “more pie” isn’t the solution:

My tendency, for many years, was to react to that emotional unease by elevating the holiday.

If I couldn’t control the unyielding passage of time, I could at least manage the menu, the tablesetting, the guest list. If I couldn’t ensure many more Thanksgivings, I could make this one “perfect.”

Meanwhile, my mom was quietly calculating energy and recovery time. For her, the distinction between six side dishes and ten isn’t merely about more dishes; it’s whether she becomes exhausted for days afterward. It’s whether her arthritis flares. It’s whether she spends the following week in pain instead of joy.

Her request for me to rest was equally a call for us to focus on what genuinely matters.

That’s the shift I now encourage my patients and their families to contemplate: Instead of pursuing a larger, busier Thanksgiving, what if we utilized the holiday as a moment to check in, speak honestly, and initiate a plan?

Not a dramatic, all-or-nothing care summit that ruins dessert, but a gentle, intentional “state of the union” on how things are unfolding.

Three straightforward methods to turn Thanksgiving into a soft-care check-in:

You don’t need to convert Thanksgiving into a family meeting with an agenda and minutes (please don’t). But a few small adjustments can quietly change the day from a performance to preparation.

1. Observe like a clinician, respond like a child:

Most physician-children I collaborate with are already observing; they just feel guilty about what they note. This year, grant yourself the permission to notice, but postpone judgment.

– How easily are your parents navigating the house?
– Are they managing medications and timing without confusion?
– Who is truly carrying out the hosting duties and how is their body handling it?

Instead of confronting