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Thanksgiving is often cast as a holiday of unity, but it has also become a microcosm of the country’s fractures.
What winds up being served for Thanksgiving dinner, who shows up — or doesn’t — and whether politics gets mentioned, can reflect broader shifts in ideology and culture. Simultaneously, Thanksgiving is still intended to bridge divides and emphasize the magnificence of the great American experiment launched centuries ago.
One example of this is the food Americans choose to eat on Thanksgiving and how they make it.
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Take-out and dine-in options have become more widely adopted in contemporary Thanksgiving celebrations, with research from restaurant software company Popmenu finding a 42% increase from 2024 in the number of folks who plan to order from, or dine-in at, a restaurant on Thanksgiving. Costs were a primary reason for the shift, along with wanting to spend more time with family and not worry about cooking.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump pardon the national Thanksgiving turkey Gobble in the Rose Garden of the White House, Nov. 25, 2025. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press )
The length of time spent at the dinner table can also be quite telling.
In 2018, university researchers analyzed smartphone location data pings and determined that “politically diverse” Thanksgiving dinners tended to be significantly shorter than those dinners involving a family of entirely like-minded individuals. The study, conducted in 2018, showed the average dinner was 30 minutes to 50 minutes shorter at tables full of politically diverse folks, while a study measuring the same thing in 2020 found politically diverse dinners to be about 24 minutes shorter on average.
Meanwhile, other Thanksgiving survey data from 2025, published by YouGov, found that 19% of Democrats expect to have political arguments at the dinner table, compared to 9% of Republicans.
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President George W. Bush traveled to Iraq in 2003 to meet with troops without the public’s knowledge. (Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images)
It is hard to say overall whether Thanksgiving diners have gotten longer or shorter, but according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, people typically spend around 128 minutes on meal preparation and cleanup, 89 minutes on eating and drinking, and about 148 minutes socializing, according to a long-term analysis conducted between 2003 and 2015.
According to the National Turkey Federation, 94% of Americans plan to celebrate Thanksgiving.
The group added that 87% of those who celebrate say turkey is part of their holiday tradition, with 74% planning to serve an entire bird.
An archival photograph of President Gerald R. Ford carving a turkey at Camp David Nov. 25, 1976. (Gerald R. Ford Library/The National Archives)
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However, simultaneously, other findings from turkey producer Jennie-O indicated that there is a growing openness for less traditional Thanksgiving meal options, which the group said shows a “blend of old and new is redefining what Thanksgiving dinner looks like across America.”
The turkey product brand noted that 55% of Americans were “open to trying Thanksgiving recipes from different cultures,” particularly via side dishes.
Even the changing treatment of the turkeys used for the presidential pardon has shifted slightly over the years.
In the early-2000s, turkeys that were presented were sometimes unnamed, or treated more anonymously, but more recently it has become standard to dub the turkeys with names and humanize them a bit. That trend also mirrors a shift toward better care for the pardoned turkeys over the years.
