Class shapes how we celebrate—and these traditions reveal the invisible divide between resourcefulness and abundance.
Growing up, I watched American TV shows with their perfect Thanksgiving spreads. The reality I knew was different.
Later, I'd encounter families who approached the holiday from an entirely different economic position. The contrast was stark.
What strikes me most is how invisible these differences are. Two families can celebrate the same holiday, express the same gratitude, and yet the mechanics of how it all happens reveal everything about class in America.
These differences aren't about one way being better. They're about making the holiday work with what you have.
1. Using paper plates isn't lazy, it's strategic
Walk into an upper-class Thanksgiving and you'll see generations of inherited china, crystal glasses catching candlelight, and silver that someone spent hours polishing.
Lower-middle-class families? Heavy-duty paper plates from the party store.
But here's what wealthier families miss: those paper plates represent a choice. When you're the one doing all the cooking and you work retail hours that mean you might have to leave for a shift right after dinner, washing 20 place settings isn't quaint. It's another unpaid job.
I've heard people say they'd rather spend an extra hour with family than an extra hour at the sink.
The Chinet plates meant actually relaxing after the meal instead of dividing into washing and drying teams while the football game played on.
2. Potluck isn't just tradition, it's necessity
Thanksgiving experiences differ drastically by class, especially when it comes to who shoulders the financial burden.
In upper-class families, the host typically covers the entire spread. It's a display of abundance and hospitality.
Lower-middle-class Thanksgivings? Everyone brings something, and it's coordinated weeks in advance.
Someone always does the sweet potato casserole because they found that recipe that feeds twelve for under eight dollars. Another person brings rolls from the grocery store bakery. Someone else handles the green beans.
It's not about splitting costs to be polite. It's about making sure there's actually enough food on the table.
The potluck structure also means that if someone's having a tough month, they can contribute something smaller without shame. The goal is getting everyone fed and together, not impressive hosting.
3. Thanksgiving happens on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday too
This surprises people from wealthier backgrounds.
They assume everyone has Thursday off. That Thanksgiving is always Thursday.
For lower-class and working families, holidays often mean mandatory shifts at retail stores, restaurants, gas stations, or hospitals.
So Thanksgiving dinner gets scheduled around who's working when.
Maybe it's Friday evening after everyone's shifts end. Maybe it's Sunday afternoon because that's the only day the whole family can gather.
The meal is just as meaningful. The gratitude just as real. But it happens when it can happen, not when the calendar says it should.
Upper-class families might call this "not really Thanksgiving." We called it making it work.
4. Leftovers are planned, not accidental
Wealthier families often cook massive amounts and then wonder what to do with all the extra food.
Lower-middle-class families have always seen leftovers as essential, not excessive.
These families calculate exactly how many meals they can stretch from Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey sandwiches for work lunches. Turkey soup by the weekend. Mashed potatoes mixed into breakfast hash.
People bring their own containers to dinner specifically to pack up portions to take home.
This isn't being presumptuous. It's understanding that those leftovers represent groceries you won't have to buy. Meals you won't have to cook after a long shift.
Some years, Thanksgiving leftovers carried us through the following week. That was the point.
5. Store-bought is fine (actually, it's expected)
Cooking shows feature hosts making everything from scratch: fresh-baked rolls, homemade cranberry sauce, pie crust rolled by hand.
Many lower-middle-class families assemble Thanksgiving differently. Nearly half of it comes from cans, boxes, or the frozen section.
Not because we didn't know how to cook. Because time is a luxury, and so are the ingredients for from-scratch everything.
When you work two jobs or you're cobbling together shifts, spending six hours making homemade rolls isn't feasible. The $2.99 bag from the store bakery works just fine.
Upper-class food culture has recently romanticized "rustic" and "simple" foods. But there's a difference between choosing simplicity as an aesthetic and needing it as a practical reality.
We didn't feel bad about the canned cranberry sauce. We were grateful it existed.
6. Kids eat with adults, period
The separate "kids table" is a middle-to-upper-class tradition that assumes you have enough space, enough dishes, and enough adults willing to supervise a separate seating area.
Lower-middle-class Thanksgivings? Kids squeeze in wherever there's room.
Seven-year-olds sit next to their grandparents. Teenagers end up between aunts and uncles. Everyone eats together because there's only one table, or a cluster of folding tables pushed together, or sometimes just the living room with plates balanced on laps.
This isn't chaos. It's intimacy.
The kids hear the grown-up conversations. They learn how adults talk about real things. They're part of the fabric of the gathering, not separated from it.
Some people don't realize this is a class thing until they encounter wealthier families who shepherd all the children to a separate table with someone assigned to supervise.
7. The meal happens early (like, really early)
Upper-class Thanksgiving dinners often happen in the late afternoon or early evening. There's time for elaborate preparation, cocktail hour, leisurely courses.
Lower-middle-class Thanksgivings frequently start at noon or even earlier.
Why? Because people have work.
Someone has a second-shift job starting at 3pm. Someone needs to drive two hours back home before their Friday morning opening shift. Someone's scheduled at the hospital overnight.
Early Thanksgiving means more people can actually attend before they have to leave for work.
It also means you can fit in both Thanksgiving and a work shift in the same day—a reality that upper-class families rarely consider.
8. Asking to take home food isn't rude, it's survival
At a formal Thanksgiving dinner, guests wait to be offered leftovers. It's considered gauche to ask.
At lower-middle-class gatherings, everyone shows up with containers and aluminum foil ready to pack up what they brought and grab extras if available.
This isn't greed. It's practicality wrapped in generosity.
When food is a significant part of your budget, taking home leftovers means your kids have lunch for school. It means you're not choosing between groceries and rent next week.
Hosts at these gatherings encourage people to take food home. There's even a silent understanding about who probably needs it most, and those people get offered the biggest portions to take.
The subtext is beautiful: We take care of each other through food, through making sure no one leaves empty-handed.
Final thoughts
Class shapes everything about how we celebrate, even holidays supposedly about togetherness and gratitude.
Neither approach to Thanksgiving is better or worse. They're just different responses to different circumstances.
What strikes me most is how invisible these differences are until you've seen both sides.
The family eating early off paper plates with store-bought sides? They're not doing Thanksgiving wrong.
They're doing it the way that works. The way that gets everyone fed and together despite the obstacles.
And honestly, that might be the most Thanksgiving thing of all.
If You Were a Healing Herb, Which Would You Be?
Each herb holds a unique kind of magic — soothing, awakening, grounding, or clarifying.
This 9-question quiz reveals the healing plant that mirrors your energy right now and what it says about your natural rhythm.
✨ Instant results. Deeply insightful.
