The exhausted dad: A feast fit for a busy family

How to make the laziest holiday meal imaginable:

Step 1: Have four kids.

Step 2: As parents, take on too many work and school responsibilities.

Step 3: Keep a kitchen full of food that requires little-to-no-effort to cook.

Step 4: Embrace your kids’ finicky eating habits.

This year, when my wife and I didn’t have enough time or energy to cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, not a single kid complained. They knew that the long holiday weekend would likely include a trip to McDonald’s and a food delivery or two.

Because my wife and I both grew up in families where work and scheduling sometimes forced Thanksgiving get-togethers to happen on alternative days, we don’t feel too precious about sticking to fourth-Thursday-in-November traditions. This Thanksgiving, I worked on a school paper. All day. The kids watched some bizarre “Captain Underpants” show and covered the kitchen table with paper scraps, glue, glitter and paint.

Honestly, the effort of Thanksgiving dinner largely goes unappreciated in our house most years. The kids don’t really like “cooked turkey” (the deli version works for two of them). Mashed potatoes? A different two out of four like those. Stuffing? Zilch. Green beans? That’s too much of a vegetable. Cranberries? Only in craisin form.

As for pumpkin pie… well, everybody obviously likes pie. My kids aren’t monsters.

All our kids like different things, so the Thursday Thanksgiving menu varied.

My wife and I ate microwaved pulled pork on toasted bun (fancy!) with pre-made, microwaved mashed potatoes.

My 11-year-old: One pulled pork sandwich. Toasted bun. One scoop of mashed potatoes. Orange chicken leftovers from Panda Express the night before. Frozen bean and cheese burrito.

My 9-year-old: A few scoops of pulled pork, spilled out of his untoasted bun. NO mashed potatoes EVER. Chow Mein and Orange chicken leftovers. Whatever candy he snuck out of the Halloween stash when I wasn’t looking.

My 7-year-old: Pulled pork on untoasted bun. Extra pulled pork on the side. Two scoops of mashed potatoes doused with half a stick of butter. Canned black beans with shredded cheese melted on top.

My 5-year-old: One toasted bun. No pulled pork. No mashed potatoes. No Panda Express leftovers. But, hey, don’t fret! He ate a small bowl of pretzels and half a yogurt tube earlier in the day. We give him vitamins!

And just in case you think we’re not providing vegetables to their diet, think again. The Chow Mein contains onion and celery, mashed potatoes count, so… Boom. And I’m told the vitamins we give the 5-year-old are the same as the ones found in vegetables.

This simple approach to Thanksgiving allowed my wife and I to catch up on work/school responsibilities, and, blah, blah, blah, we’re teaching our kids about being independent and blah, blah, blah.

Honestly, this Thanksgiving meal wasn’t all that out of the ordinary compared to the last few months. We’re trying to keep it simple and reduce the time the grown-ups spend in the kitchen and more effort on using the limited free moments on quality time with the kids.

We’ve only had a couple cereal dinners… something I constantly tried to peddle on my parents during childhood. Cereal dinner, as many know, is where you eat three bowls of cereal for dinner. Unfortunately, we can’t pull that one off in our house often, because, with four kids, any cereal we buy gets devoured within 24 hours.

This lackadaisical approach to meal-making, isn’t a forever situation, and we keep the kids happy by stocking the specific (and mostly healthy) foods they like. Then, sure, we eat Panda Express and pizza sometimes as well. My kids think Panda Express Orange Chicken tastes better than a juicy turkey with all the trimmings anyway.

Well, my 5-year-old thinks both are disgusting. He likes maybe 12 foods total. He takes vitamins, OK!?

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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student, and parent to four kids, ages 5-11. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.