Your first Thanksgiving with your partner's family

Being nervous about this is the correct reaction. Thanksgiving with your partner’s family packs a first meeting, a long day, a lot of food and someone else’s traditions into one afternoon.

Two things are worth holding at once: it matters, and it’s survivable.

Why it feels like a test

Partly because the holiday itself is stressful for almost everyone. In an APA poll from November 2023, 89% of U.S. adults named at least one source of holiday stress, and 36% said the season can feel like a competition.1 You’re walking into a room where the hosts are probably stressed too.

Partly because it does matter, a bit. In a 2008 study of 254 people in relationships, how much they believed their friends and family approved of the relationship was tied to how committed they felt to it.3 Your partner’s family won’t decide your relationship. But your partner will notice how the day goes.

And partly because it’s simply a stressful kind of first. When Polish researchers asked young adults to imagine meeting a partner’s parents, they predicted feeling stressed. A second group, interviewed about meetings that had really happened, commonly remembered stress and fear.2 The samples were small, 34 and then 8 people, so treat it as a hint. If you’re nervous, you’re doing it the usual way.

What the invite tells you

Relationship and intimacy expert Viviana Coles told CNN that inviting a partner to Thanksgiving tells the family this person is important and worth getting to know.4 That’s worth remembering when you’re standing at the door with a pie you’re not sure about. Someone wanted you there.

The week before

Your partner has years of these dinners behind them; you have none. The list below is a way to close that gap together. It isn’t a quiz for you.

On the day

Given how many hosts are stressed this time of year,1 the most useful thing a guest does is lower the temperature: ask your partner whether to bring a dish, offer to help, and let your partner field the questions about their own family. If a relative asks when you’re getting engaged, that one’s theirs to answer.

If you haven’t met the parents at all before this, our guide to meeting their parents for the first time covers the basics.

Afterward

Talk it over on the way home, gently. What did your partner notice that you didn’t? Which relative was warmer than they looked? Whatever you learn, you go to the next one knowing more than you did today.

What this rests on

The APA figures describe adults in general in 2023, not couples meeting families.1 The meeting-the-parents studies were small.2 The approval study shows a link, not that family approval causes commitment.3 The suggestions for the day are ours, built on those findings rather than tested by them.