The holidays are barreling upon us faster than a chef turning around an entrée for a VIP whose check was lost. For most of your guests, Thanksgiving is a time to spend precious moments with family, friends, and loved ones. For those of us in the restaurant industry, it’s a time for long hours, doubles, and the occasional clopen. November and December is not a relaxing time to be working in a restaurant. Anyone who works in our industry for a living knows that working on holidays is a part of the job just like wearing non-slip shoes, eating meals while standing up, and having your hair smell like fajita smoke.

I spent five years waiting tables at a Marriott in Brooklyn. Thanksgiving was one of the busiest days of the year right up there with Mother’s Day because the hotel offered an all-you-can-eat brunch. Thanksgiving would be sold out weeks in advance. It was one of the only days of the year when every single one of us, from waitstaff to kitchen crew, shared a shift all day long. If someone had managed to score Thanksgiving Day off, there must have been some kind of serious blackmail happening, because this was definitely an “all hands on deck” kind of day. Every year, we all dreaded that day, and every year we were pleasantly surprised to show up early Thursday morning and discover a sense of excitement about all of us being there at the same time. It’s like we all resigned ourselves to the fact that if we couldn’t be with our own families, we’d have to make the most out of being with our dysfunctional work family instead. 

Thanksgiving brunch had three different seatings, each one two hours long. At 11 a.m., we opened the doors to a stampede and then we would herd them back out at 1 p.m. It felt so much like maneuvering cattle that we should have been branding them with a big M for Marriott on their way out. There were 30 minutes between each seating, giving us plenty of time to completely reset the dining room and the buffet line for the next seating. And by “plenty of time” I mean “barely enough time” to strip all the tables of their linens and then cover them again with freshly starched tablecloths along with a complete set of silverware, water, and wine glasses—not to mention the fresh floral centerpieces that sat in the middle of each table. 

Like a well-oiled machine, we all sprung into action. The kitchen crew was a blur of white chef coats rolling out carts of breads, pastries, potatoes, and vegetables and restocking the steam tables and dessert trays. Whole roasted turkeys and slabs of prime rib made their way to the carving station. Bartenders were furiously popping bottles of Champagne for the unlimited mimosas. We servers were rushing to the kitchen for more silver and glassware, and if we were lucky, a bathroom break too. Through the closed glass doors, we could see customers crowding into the lobby eager to be seated first so they could  take full advantage of their allotted two hours of gorging. Just when we thought there was no way we were going to make it by 1:30 p.m., suddenly, we had done it. One of the chefs circled the dining room with a sizzling hot skillet of butter and herbs for that last touch of ambience and the second seating began. 

At 3:30 p.m., there was another frantic half hour of scrambling, and at 4 p.m. we started the third seating, with another group of hungry people ready to give thanks. Somewhere in those frenetic hours, all of us managed to sneak a bite of food and share a few laughs. By 6 p.m., it was done. Our restaurant family had gathered together to create our own Thanksgiving. Maybe it wasn’t what we had all wanted at the time. There was no sitting at a dining table with our grandparents or siblings and there was no dozing off to sleep on the sofa after one too many pieces of pumpkin pie. But it was our Thanksgiving. We realized that the holiday is what you make of it, and if you’re lucky enough to be surrounded by people you care about on that day, then isn’t that what it's all about? I think so. 

It’s been 17 years since I’ve spent a holiday at the Marriott. I still remember the craziness of those Thanksgiving shifts and how difficult they were to get through, but I also remember how much fun we had getting through them together as a team. I’m definitely thankful for the memories. Oh, and the gratuity was automatically added to every single table on Thanksgiving brunch so we servers walked out with pockets full of cash. That definitely helped us to give thanks for being there.

Whether or not you're stuck working on Thanksgiving, tell us in the comments what you're thankful for this year.

Darron Cardosa (aka @thebitchywaiter), is an actor/singer/waiter/author who’s performed professionally for 25 years and waited tables for almost as long. He's blogged about food service for 10 years.