Gravy Bowl
No Humbug Wednesday
Christmas Complainers Eat from the Gravy Bowl
About Gravy Bowl
Gravy Bowl is a playful pre-Thanksgiving tradition designed to lovingly roast the Christmas complainers among us, the ones who mutter, “It’s too early for Christmas music,” and grumble at store decorations in mid-November. The rules are simple: the worst offender must eat dinner out of the Thanksgiving gravy bowl while seated at the kids’ table. They might even don a festive sign like “I Speak Humbug” to remind everyone of their Grinch-like ways. It’s a lighthearted way to address the eternal tension between Christmas enthusiasts and their less enthusiastic counterparts, ensuring everyone heads into Thanksgiving with a smile.
Ways to observe
(A) Low effort
Take note of the biggest Christmas complainer at the table and playfully crown them with a “Gravy Bowl Grinch” award. Just a simple paper sign will do.
(B) Recommended
Call out the Christmas complainer over dinner with a joke or small gesture, like a makeshift crown or sign. Pair it with a toast to embrace the holiday spirit. Serve everyone dessert in a gravy bowl in their honor.
(C) High effort
Organize a full Gravy Bowl Ceremony. Set up a special place at the kids’ table for the complainer with their assigned gravy bowl. Prepare a mock trial where friends and family list their ‘complaints’ about the accused’s Christmas negativity before the bowl is ceremoniously presented.
Inspiration
You don’t have a Christmas Scrooge in your family? Look harder. A distant cousin, a cranky uncle, a younger sibling with a performative distaste for sentimental Christmas music. And if by some miracle your family truly lacks one, find a third cousin twice removed and invite them to Thanksgiving. To be clear, they don’t have to stay for the meal. They just need to show up in time for Gravy Bowl, because nothing brings a family together like gently (or not-so-gently) torturing the Christmas complainers. Grumbling about Christmas has a long and noble lineage. Ebenezer Scrooge muttered “Bah, humbug” in 1843 and secured his place as the patron saint of seasonal misery. The Grinch scaled a mountain just to avoid a carol. The Puritans went even further, banning Christmas altogether in 17th-century New England for being too indulgent, too rowdy, and too Catholic.
And let’s not forget the modern phenomenon of “Christmas creep,” which inspires endless think pieces and memes from people who pretend to be offended by a peppermint mocha on November 1. But here’s the truth: we need these people. Without a few vocal contrarians, how would the rest of us measure the full depth of our yuletide enthusiasm? Gravy Bowl doesn’t aim to convert the humbuggery. It simply gives it a designated seat at the table, a kid-sized one, with a novelty sign and a gravy bowl of comeuppance. Don’t worry about offending the Grinches. They’ll relish the spotlight, especially if it means a bigger stage for their incomprehensible grumblings.
Adornments
Watch
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)
A sharp-tongued comedy about a famously grumpy houseguest who wreaks havoc during an unexpected Christmas stay. It’s a perfect Christmas movie for your favorite humbug, skewering holiday hospitality with wit while hinting that even the most awful Scrooge can amuse.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
The definitive Christmas curmudgeon. Chuck Jones’s animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s book captures the Grinch’s arc from grumbling recluse to reluctant reveler with vivid, snarky charm. At only 26 minutes, it’s a tight, colorful parable of seasonal transformation.
Bad Santa (2003)
A pitch-black holiday comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton as a conman Santa who utterly loathes Christmas. Often cited as the most cynical Christmas film, it wallows in irreverence and bad behavior. Yet by the end, even this vulgar Grinch is nudged into a very reluctant act of kindness.
Listen
The Season’s Upon Us by Dropkick Murphys
A raucous Celtic-punk ode to wildly dysfunctional family gatherings. Filled with fiddles, beer, and biting quips, the song’s narrator catalogs his relatives’ misdeeds.
Father Christmas by The Kinks
Sung from the perspective of working-class kids who’d prefer cash over toys, it’s a cynical swipe at holiday charity.
Read
Let Nothing You Dismay by Mark O’Donnell
A little-known novella following a grad student through seven Christmas parties in a single day. O’Donnell serves up sharp observations on forced festivity and inevitable strains of the season.
Eat
Coal Cookies
Give your holiday complainer exactly what Santa would: a lump of coal—but make it chocolate. Prepare “coal” cookies (Oreo-fudge truffles rolled into irregular black lumps) and award them as needed.