We celebrate Thanksgiving a week early. It makes travel easier for my family, and no one has to worry about splitting the holiday.

• A few years ago, my family started celebrating Thanksgiving a week before the actual holiday.
• The new tradition has taken a lot of stress out of the holiday, both for the host and the guests.
• I also love that my boyfriend and I never have to worry about splitting the holiday.

In 2021, my mom had a proposition to move the day we celebrate Thanksgiving.

At first, the idea sounded a little wild — how could we just move a holiday? But once we thought about it, the number of people at the dinner table had dwindled over the years.

Once we polled the family and found out that more people would be able to come on a different date, we officially moved the celebration to the Saturday before.

Here’s why celebrating “Thanksgiving Saturday” was one of the best choices we’ve made.

Celebrating a week early eliminates some of the holiday stress

We’ve hosted Thanksgiving at my mom’s house for as long as I can remember, spending most of the week leading up to the holiday prepping — and most of the following days resting.

Because my mom worked in retail her whole life, she always had to work on Black Friday and rarely got to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner without thinking about work.

By celebrating early on a Saturday, however, she was able to rest and enjoy the day.

But it’s not just my mom who’s reaping the benefits of changing the date. Some family members travel from out of state and find travel more manageable and relaxing the week before the actual holiday. They find they can spend more time focusing on family and less time worrying about long airport lines.

For family members who drive long distances to celebrate with us, they appreciate not having to sit in the same Thanksgiving traffic as everyone else.

It’s nice knowing that my boyfriend and I don’t have to split Thanksgiving

Moving the day we celebrate has also helped alleviate the pressure of splitting time between families.

For example, my boyfriend celebrates the week before with us, and we spend Thanksgiving day with his family.

This has relieved the stress of deciding what holidays we want to spend with whom, mainly because I have a 92-year-old grandmother and don’t want to miss any Thanksgiving celebrations with her.

Now, I don’t have to miss out on Thanksgiving with anyone or choose which family to celebrate with.

We don’t plan on ending this tradition anytime soon

The most important aspect of our celebration is spending time together, enjoying a meal, and sharing our reasons for being thankful.

By having Thanksgiving early, we’re able to celebrate the holiday and spend quality time with as many family members and friends as possible.

Now that we’ve been doing this for years, I can’t imagine my family will stop anytime soon.