Yeah, I’ve told both my kids, over and over again, that if they EVER are at someone else’s table for dinner, they’d better flippin’ clear that table and do the dishes. Unasked. If someone wants to stop them, that’s fine also, but they MUST leap to help, right off the bat.
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My kids are not impressed with my cooking, other than ordering out. D1 has been hosting most of holiday meals for a while now. She only asks me to bring wines and shrimp cocktail (can’t really mess that up). D2 is also a good cook, so she’ll help her sister with the cooking. I don’t do anything.
For Chinese holidays, my mother will make some of her favorite dishes and I’ll order from our favorite Chinese restaurants.
My mother did all the cooking, cleaning, clean up, shopping for the 65 years of her marriage. My father never did one thing, including carrying his dish to the kitchen. I took over most of the cooking and clean up because it became too much for her to lift things from the oven. One issue is that the kitchen is too small for more than one person to be in there, and a lot of the cleaning had to be done as you go (and run one or more cycles of the dishwasher during the day).
We are invited to different friends for different holidays. I’m always invited for Jewish holidays at a friend’s and can only bring wine as I don’t have a kosher home. At Hanukkah I bring donuts (store bought). No way to help clean up as their kitchen is small.
When I host, I do all of the “main” cooking (turkey, stuffing, gravy, and potatoes; Pumpkin Pie is a la “Chef Costco”) and husband does clean up and “as you go” clean up. My kitchen is small and was poorly designed, so no room for anyone else and no counter space. (We’re working on fixing that.)
Anyway, I go to the web site: sign up genius, to do the potluck list for extra sides-fruits, salads, other desserts, breads, paper products and drinks.
OK pass by the rest of this if you don’t want to hear any drama:
We’re having a problem this year because two of us (Thing 1 & 2) don’t have workable kitchens, so I can’t host and neither can she. So, because we have an insane sister (Thing 3), who can’t let go of her football traditions, this sister is not hosting that day, but has asked us to go with her family to HER sister-in-law’s home for Thanksgiving dinner.
Thing 3 also offered to have thanksgiving dinner, the night before, but can’t do the whole dinner without our help. She wants everything “homemade” and keeps “forgetting” that we don’t have kitchens. Neither I nor Thing 2 want to cook. We offered to pick up catered dinners, but Thing 3 is not having it. Also, a number of family members are working late on Wednesday or already have commitments for that evening, but seeing as how we don’t want to go to her SIL’s home, Thing 3 doesn’t want “excuses”.
Uh, that’s a no from both my sister, myself, and our families. We don’t know the SIL well, we weren’t directly invited, and SIL tends to have a temper, plus she lives a good distance from all of us. We are a huge number with all of the spouses and their children. I can’t see her serving a large spread to all of us, even with offers of side dishes from Costco.
So, my husband and I made reservations, at a local country inn, which has a famous Thanksgiving dinner. Thing 2 thinks it a great idea and wants to join us and will bring our mother. They will have a separate table near us. Thing 3 is furious because she wants us to “all be together” and spend this day at her sister-in-law’s.
Because Thing 3 has a large family, she cannot afford the price of the dinner at the country inn. If she doesn’t attend the game, then she can host, but she said she absolutely will not sacrifice and miss the game, and we’re okay with that.
We (Thing 1 & 2) told her that we would be okay without the large dinner and that she should go to her sister-in-law’s and that we were comfortable doing our own thing with our families.
So the drama is that she wants us all together, even though we would be uncomfortable. WE were not directly invited and it’s not someone whose temperament is conducive to ours. Plus, we got a whiff of that SIL’s budgetary scrimping. There is a history there. Previously, SIL and husband were asked to bring 12 deviled eggs and 12 rolls to a birthday party. Yep you guessed it, they brought 6 eggs and 6 rolls and cut them in half: TADA 12 eggs and 12 rolls! No one said that she couldn’t do the creative math.
Do I care if Thing 3 is angry? . . . . a very little bit.
Are we going to Thing 3’s SIL’s house? Nope, we paid a good deposit.
Edited to add: I didn’t mean to go off tangent! SORRY!
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Haha, I do it all! Mostly. D23 is really good about clearing the table. DH will empty the dishwasher/finish the wine glasses/put stuff away late at night once I’m in bed. That’s nice to come down in the morning and see that there’s nothing left to do. Last Thanksgiving I ordered the cooked Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc from Whole Foods. It was wonderful, made clean up easier. Definitely doing again this year.
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We instilled in (now adult) D from the time she was 10, “participate in all things family” - at the time that meant, helping with meal prep, clean up, housework, garden chores, etc. - it has served us well. She’s coming for the Thanksgiving weekend and has planned the meal, provided the shopping list (since I have more free time than she does), and we (together) will fully prep & cook dinner (this year the main will be vegan lasagna rolls with homemade cashew/tofu “ricotta”) & together we will clean up. When she was younger she’d go to grandma’s early (they lived 4 houses from us) and participate by prepping, setting the table, helping cook, and then she’d let the others clean up after (since they didn’t come earlier).
It’s not even a conversation in our house, it’s expected and no one complains.
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We go out for dinner on Thanksgiving. Just 3 of us now (me, DH, DS) since my mom passed away two years ago.
We used to host Christmas Day for the 3 of us, my mom, and my 3 step kids, their partners, our 6 grandkids, and sometimes they’d bring extra kids along.
I did all the cooking, baking, shopping, wrapping, etc. DH and DS would carry up tables, chairs, crockpots from the basement. DH would do the cleaning.
Two days after Christmas, I would make another Christmas dinner for when my dad visited. (Sadly, he passed away last December).
Since Covid, we stopped hosting everyone here on Christmas Day(very long story). It’s just the 3 of us here for Christmas now. I still do all the cooking, baking, shopping, wrapping, etc. so nothing has really changed too much for me. There is nothing to bring up from the basement and DH doesn’t bother with much cleaning…
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We hosted holiday dinners once it became too much for H’s mother (now gone). It grew to about 20 people. Thanksgiving was somewhat a potluck with us doing the mains and some sides. We’d do everything at Christmas. I would do the lion’s share of cooking, cleaning, etc. Didn’t mind because I’m picky about food, décor and getting everything cleaned up at the end of the night. H’s job was to keep people out of the kitchen for the last minute stuff (gravy, tequila shots 
)
After covid we scaled way back. Now it’s just us, our kids, their partners & our GD. So much easier!
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I don’t like anyone helping me with cooking or cleaning for holidays. I don’t want anyone to bring anything. I like being in control and doing things just the way I want. I like cleaning and find it satisfying. However I raised my kids to always offer to help and always to bring things to people homes. And they do.
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Cooking almost everything but the turkey the day/night before as a family (me, DH, son, my mom) is a decades-long tradition and the highlight of our year. T-day itself is almost inconsequential. I make a pot of clam chowder and cheddar popovers early Wednesday afternoon along with setting up a never-ending champagne bar so we can sip and eat as we cook the Thanksgiving hors d’oeuvres, stuffing, sauces, sides, and desserts. We split up the recipe cards, roll up the sleeves of our chef jackets, turn up the music, and go at it. It’s an all afternoon/evening riot of kitchen and cooking fun. We even set the table the day before (china, silver, crystal, linen, the works).
Thanksgiving morning, DH tends to the turkey on the grill, and we have a leisurely day as we only need to warm up the go-withs. We enjoy the meal but not as much as the making of it. Everyone pitches in later to clean up. We usually finish the day with drinks and dessert in the evening around the outdoor fireplace.
Covid interrupted this ballet for a couple of years, and our son and his new wife can’t be with us this year. However, she’s wonderful in the kitchen and fit right in when we duplicated the same T-Day dance at their house a couple of years ago.
Since our son’s senior year of HS, he has made Beef Wellington for us for Christmas. He does the shopping and the cooking, so DH and I do the cleanup on that one.
And, I guess I should mention that both T-day and Christmas are just me, DH, our son, and my mom, no other guests or relatives. Due to the Army, our son has not been home in four years, but he and his wife are visiting this January. We will definitely cook/clean together while they’re here. I’m counting on it.
ETA: We started our son out right:
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Thanksgiving cooking is the realm of the guys. We go to BIL’s and he, H and S2 (before he moved overseas) did pretty much everything. SIL’s stepdad made all the desserts. I make the killer cranberry sauce.
My sister-in-law, niece and I do Passover.
We all clean up.
There are only a few of us these days – H’s fam is small, SIL’s mom and stepdad go out to AZ to see their D and the two little grandkids.
When we go to my dad’s in December, we now all scramble to take over the kitchen before my dad gets in there. He’s not careful about food safety these days and everything, even the chili, has sugar. He won’t give up control. No fresh vegetables unless my youngest sister or I bring them (we’re the only two who eat them). The menu is limited to what you can put on a paper plate in your lap. OTOH, everyone’s there and hilarity always ensues.
My H won’t eat anything in that house, so we follow the ancient Jewish tradition of finding Chinese food in Augusta, GA on Christmas Day. We keep that food at the hotel. 
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This is an impossible situation! Can you imagine several people showing up unexpectedly to a dinner you’re hosting?! What is Thing 3 thinking?!
When I host a dinner, I don’t want people to bring dishes (daughter and son-in-law will bring the wine, since they are much more knowledgeable about it than me). When I’ve planned a menu, I want to control the dishes. I also don’t like sharing my kitchen and feel that it’s actually more work for me to tell well-meaning helpers where everything is. That’s me. When my daughter went to her sister-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving last year, she was shocked to get assigned a dish to bring, especially since they were coming from 4 hours away.
In our family, I do Thanksgiving and Christmas Day and my daughter does Christmas Eve. I have a stable of tried-and-true recipes that I’ve done for years. Several Thanksgivings ago, I gave up on trying to do my own turkey (and also learned via a random family discussion that most of us don’t love turkey, and some of us would be happy with just the side dishes and the desserts). We now do a honey-baked ham and a small roasted turkey breast for the turkey hold-outs. Both just need to be heated. This eliminates 80% of the stress. Even so, it’s a lot to juggle all of the side dishes. I do find that once I’ve cooked everything, I rarely am interested in eating it 
I also welcome the years where we decide to do a family vacation over Thanksgiving or we’re invited to someone’s house, and I get a break from the cooking. I haven’t had to cook for the past two Thanksgivings. I didn’t miss it.
As far as cleaning - I keep a clean house. I have a cleaning service that comes twice a month (mainly because I don’t like cleaning my tiled shower), but I’m running the vacuum, cleaning or dusting something myself several times a week - so it’s doesn’t take much to get ready to host a holiday.
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To each their own of course. It is a rare occasion that I’ve been invited to any food get together and arrived empty handed. Or expected to be served and not contribute. That’s a life I have never led! (and am totally happy to be contributing something to the dinner - food related or not)
I think this is one of the things I LIKE about others bringing dishes - variety. Of course at T-giving we will have turkey and dressing and gravy and mashed potatoes…but want to bring brussels sprouts instead of green beans? Go for it! Did you find a new appetizer dish you’ve been dying to make - bring it! I love (and i think in our family, most others do as well) a little variety from year to year.
As far as cleaning, I’ll pick up before guests and sweep the floors and make sure the bathrooms are decent - but I’ll save scrubbing the floor or other event-effected cleaning for AFTER the event!
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I and my two daughters had been going to a restaurant, pre-COVID. We dress up for fun (I never dress up otherwise). My son avoids holidays because he finds them stressful and visits at other times.
Last year my daughters and I had Thanksgiving at my small apartment, just lots of vegetables and pie. My daughter cooked w/help from me and we cleaned up together.
My mother died last year and I do not envision extended family gatherings without her. Sad, but it’s just the way it is.
We cook together as a family - husband, daughter, and me - as part of our tradition. Although we each have our own dishes (for example, I do the potatoes, my daughter does the brussels sprouts, my husband does the stuffed mushrooms). I would never go to anybody’s house for a meal without bringing something. I would ask what to bring - if I got told nothing - I would bring a bottle and or flowers. I was thrilled last year when my daughter showed up for Thanksgiving with wonderful baked goods from a local place near where she lives. She got up at the crack of dawn a few days before to wait in line to get the stuff. It signified a rite of passage for me - she is now old enough to feel she needs to contribute.
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Thanksgiving is at my parents and we bring a vegetarian entree and desserts. It’s very casual -just me and H and our college age kids. My mom does most of the cooking and all of us clean up.
Christmas Eve is same group at my house. My mom just brings whatever she wants. Usually just a small plates kind of night.
Christmas Day is usually my SIL. Usually around 13 people. Again I bring a vegetarian entree and dessert. Everyone cleans their own plate.
I think too many people don’t just speak up of what they expect or want from others.
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A bottle of good wine is always welcome - I never arrive to an invited dinner without one (or two).
As a non-drinker (water please!) I’m more likely to bring cookies - always welcome at my house! 
Seriously, while I know someone at a wine store could choose something for me to purchase I would have no idea what to even buy.
(and to be honest, if you bring wine to my house, while I guess it can serve others, neither H or I drink so it gets shoved in a cupboard)
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Perfect!
I consult my daughter and son-in-law on this and keep notes in my phone. I’ve also brought high end whiskey & tequila, depending on who I am dealing with 