The Ministry of Del Taco on Thanksgiving
By Kendra Kruckenberg
@kendravictoria
My family has the best Thanksgiving tradition. This is a bold assertion—I know—but it’s true: eating Thanksgiving dinner at Del Taco is impossible to beat.
I don’t remember Thanksgiving without this beloved tradition. While most people’s Thanksgiving memories consist of autumn-themed tablescapes, turkey with stuffing, and pumpkin pie, mine consist of fluorescent lighting and red plastic trays filled with refried bean burritos, little packets of hot sauce, and endless “macho sized” cups of crinkle cut french fries. This might sound odd, but my parents assure me our highly unusual tradition was born from necessity. When my middle brother and I were little, both sides of our extended family inflicted immense pressure (i.e., guilt trips) regarding when and where we would show up to celebrate.
When can we see the kids?
How could you keep them away?
Don’t you want to spend every holiday with us?
You know the drill.
So, in those early days with young children, my parents succumbed to the demands of their parents and dutifully shuttled us back and forth some ninety roundtrip miles to two different family celebrations for each and every holiday, Thanksgiving included. Every year they loaded up the minivan and fought traffic for two hours to attend Thanksgiving lunch with one side of the family. Then, after a rushed lunch, they would load us back in the minivan and fight two more hours of traffic to make it to a second Thanksgiving meal with the other side of the family. By the time we’d get home late at night everyone would be exhausted and cranky. A few times, someone even got sick during the long day of festivities. And still, after schlepping our family up and down Southern California trying to make everyone happy, in the end my parents always heard from certain relatives (side of the family and specific relation withheld to protect the not-so-innocent) that they spent too much time at the other family gathering.
It’s enough to make a person cancel Thanksgiving altogether—which is exactly what my parents did.
Instead of a full day family marathon, my parents began to revolve our Thanksgiving days around fun, kid-friendly activities—going to the movies, a trip to the zoo, a day at a local theme park—though it took us a few celebrations to discover the joy of Del Taco. We spent that Thanksgiving at Knott’s Berry Farm. There were only two of us kids at the time, my youngest brother wasn’t born yet, and no one can seem to recall how old we were. My mom remembers that my middle brother was young enough to be obsessed with the pump cart ride in Camp Snoopy, but also old enough to eat french fries. We closed the park down that day, and I’d have to imagine my mom and dad were riding on adrenaline from a few years of independence and the fact that they had escaped a million hours of holiday traffic. What else would compel parents to keep their two very small children out well past dinner and bedtime? At the end of the day, as we headed down Beach Blvd. toward the freeway, my parents realized we should find somewhere to eat before we got home, so they stopped at the only place they could find open on Thanksgiving Day: Del Taco. We loved it so much that the next year my brother and I begged to repeat our motley feast of bean and cheese burritos with french fries.
The details of that inaugural Del Taco trip may be fuzzy, but the spirit of the celebration etched itself into our family culture. A few years later, we visited Knott’s Berry Farm again, this time with my two-year-old youngest brother in tow. My mom dressed us in matching polo shirts and overalls and followed us around all day with her Minolta film camera, successfully capturing the perfect Christmas card picture. When I was ten, we spent the day at Sea World and managed to have a great time, despite the fact that I am prone to motion sickness and puked all over myself and the car the minute we pulled into the parking lot. One year, we saw Nickelodeon’s Snow Day in theaters. My dad claims that the movie was so awful it took multiple years off his life, but all of us kids loved it. During my junior year of high school, we used Thanksgiving Day to visit one of my college options. We walked around and wondered out loud what kind of changes the next phase of life would bring. There’s the year we rented a cabin in Truckee and, thanks to a recent heavy snowfall, it took us two hours of chipping away at ice with shovels and pushing cars up a long, sloped driveway to get to the house. That year, we had homemade chili and cornbread for Thanksgiving dinner.
When my oldest was born, my parents insisted that my husband and I pick a Thanksgiving destination close to our house. “There is no need for you to travel with a baby,” they said when they called me to make plans. “We can all come to you.”
A tradition from my childhood—born out of inconvenience and unnecessary guilt—has grown into something precious in my adult years: a family that prioritizes togetherness over everything else; a family who doesn’t insist on sticking to a tradition that no longer works simply because it’s the way we have always celebrated. We’ve added life experience, we’ve added people, and we have created a new generation of extended family. Through it all, we’ve learned to be flexible and to love each other well. Del Taco isn’t even a requirement anymore; we simply want to spend time with each other.
These days, we celebrate Thanksgiving together on alternating years with a week-long vacation. We end our trip with an evening of snacks and PowerPoint presentations, where each member of the family eats their weight in the local cuisine and tries to convince the others where we should go next. This was suggested by my sister-in-law in 2023, and we dove in with characteristic—dare I say over-the-top—enthusiasm. My mom roped in a videographer to create the ending of her presentation on Montana, while my youngest brother started off his sales pitch on Buffalo, NY by blasting Goo Goo Dolls and misting us with a squirt bottle to simulate Niagara Falls. My Canva designed slides about Marin County, CA were no match for the ingenuity of the rest of my family, but I laughed until tears streamed down my cheeks and a comforting warmth rose up in my chest.
(A trip to British Columbia, Canada won the vote, in case you’re wondering.)
It’s tempting to think that the charm of this tradition lies in the fun outings and the unconventional dinner. It’s also tempting to think that this tradition has easily grown and changed alongside our family because of its low-key nature. I used to think both of those things. But, the magic of Del Taco on Thanksgiving exists because of my parents. Because they chose us all those years ago, sure, but more importantly because they’ve done the hard work of letting us go. They have celebrated each new milestone, encouraging us to grow while also providing a safe space to return, to bring our own families, to leave our mark.
My children are around the same ages as my brother and I were that inaugural Del Taco year, and I already wonder how my parenting will evolve as my kids grow into adulthood. Will I hold on too tight, or will I celebrate? Am I capable of creating my own version of Del Taco on Thanksgiving?
My first Thanksgiving as a married woman, my mom gave me a gift that I could not recognize the magnitude of at the time. I spent that year with my husband’s family, enjoying an opulent turkey dinner with all the fixings. When I talked to my mom later that night, and mentioned that I missed being with everyone at Del Taco, she replied, “Of course we missed you too, but you are exactly where you should be.” And that’s how I know I can do it. I know I will be able to joyfully release my children to their own lives, because my parents showed me how.
They gave me the blueprint—Del Taco Thanksgiving is a beautiful legacy to keep building upon.
Guest essay written by Kendra Kruckenberg. In a former life, Kendra worked as the Communications Director for a California State Senator, but she now happily spends her time at home with her three kids where she squeezes creative pursuits into the margins of her day. She is married to her best friend, David, believes wholeheartedly in the power of good coffee, can come up with a Friends quote for any situation, and will talk your ear off about the flowers she grows in her yard. Most importantly, she tries to live out her faith in a way that encourages others. You can find more of her writing at her Substack, A Dream That Will Need.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.