‘Tis the Season to Feast
When Thanksgiving falls later in the season (like it did this year), Christmas time becomes a blur of holiday shopping, busy Christmas tree lots, crowded family group chats, and that lingering flu-like tickle in the back of your throat. Overloading on social obligations, an abundance of your aunt’s “famous” deviled eggs, and without a single moment to relax, everyone’s holiday spirit starts to run ragged. Albeit warm, tasty, and festive, holiday meal traditions always include complicated recipes, specialty grocery shopping trips, and several hours spent in the kitchen wondering if your meat thermometer actually works. Because of this, holiday cooking is far from tranquil.
According to Delish, an online recipe publication, 87.8% of people in the U.S. plan to make a holiday meal and a whopping 70% admit they have lied to a loved one about enjoying their dish. With so many people compelled by seasonal traditions to cook extraordinarily complicated meals, there’s bound to be a few amateurs who overcook the turkey, underseason the potatoes, and spend hours watching tutorials on how to lattice-fold the pie topper. No pressure, right? Burdened by obligation and overcommitting to far too many holiday celebration nights, two in five Americans say that holiday meals are the main source of their seasonal stress.
For people who rarely use their kitchen during the rest of the year, cosplaying like a wannabe Martha Stewart for a whole month is stressful, time-consuming, and utterly exhausting.
An aspiring host can absolutely implement chef recommended techniques to simplify their holiday cooking, but that’s not always enough. The only guaranteed way to make their holiday mealtimes easier is to roll out the most tried-and-true dining technique known to society: Girl dinner.
That’s right, reinstituting this age-old tradition as a staple of the holiday season can give people the break they didn’t realize they needed. Either way, people all need to eat, and girl dinner offers a stress-free alternative to nerve-wracking holiday meal preparation. National Geographic journalist Leah Worthington, says, “Girl dinner offers an alternative to traditional labor-intensive meals.” Nutritionists have referred to the trend as “snack plate eating,” but ultimately the same principles apply to the lackadaisical girl dinner technique. These are meals assembled with convenient, cook-free, miscellaneous ingredients, and the practice can provide nearly the same nutritional value as a standard chef’s special, but with a fraction of the associated stress of cooking. “What once may have been a sheepish, solitary tradition has recently attained viral internet status,” says Worthington. “Social media hype aside, the girl dinner girls [are] onto something.”
With the holiday season already proving to be a stressful time of year for many hardworking, busy, family folk, girl dinner is a welcome respite.
Via u/hsyncoban
Fa-La-La-La Far From a Frying Pan
Nutritionally speaking, girl dinner isn’t always the perfect meal. Oftentimes, scavenging adults will eat whatever is easy and readily available in their pantry, without the wherewithal of nutritional balancing. However, uncomplicated and pressure-free, girl dinner’s health contribution has nothing to do with vitamins, complex carbs, and fiber. Instead, girl dinner fortifies one’s mental health, providing the most important and intangible nourishment of the holiday season: Peace.
Social media motivational speaker English Man Mike, says girl dinner is the only meal brave enough to stop pretending to be anything more than a moment to replenish the body. Mike raves about the positive impact of girl dinner on society, boasting that, “It’s the first time in history someone’s been honest about what adults actually eat!” Girl dinner has no frills, requires almost no effort, and refuses to be anything other than a simple grazing session in the kitchen. Mike says, “This is the meal of someone who’s had a long day and refuses to negotiate with a frying pan [and] I respect it.”
Via u/englishmanmike
The simplicity of girl dinner is enticing, especially during busy moments in one’s adult life, making the holiday season the perfect time to start implementing the occasional cook-free evening.
Oh Holy Night
Girl dinner is nothing to be ashamed of, and in times like these, everyone deserves a break. While fighting the shivering wind and juggling 10 social events before Christmas, negotiating with an uncooperative stew recipe isn’t exactly giving adults the break that they need for their mental health. One evening spent enjoying a peaceful, uncomplicated girl dinner might be just what you need to fight off your inner Grinch.
Sustained in secret for centuries and repopularized with the viral trend, girl dinner deserves another resurgence this Christmas. If only just for a single, tranquil, and long-awaited silent night.