Buffet

Yes, all of our family meals are served buffet. We always have a lot of food and there would never be enough room on the table to put all the bowls and platters anymore :)

Sue

Buffet. Went to a large gathering at a member of DIL's family at Easter, and they served 23 people family style at the table. What a PITA. I won;t ever do that in my house.

I haven't hosted Thanksgiving in several years, but I always do family style. I have a side table with a drop leaf that serves as a buffet, and I put the platter of carved meat, potatoes, stuffing salad and veggies there, the dinner table has rolls, butter, 2 kinds of cranberries, 2 containers of gravy, salt and pepper, red wine, white wine, water etc. That side table is easily reached for passing second helpings with out the disruption of having to take your plate back to the kitchen..
Back when therr was a kid's table, the mothers would fix kids plates in the kitchen and take them to their table.....then they got to outnumber the adults and we had to share the adult table with some! LOL!

Everyone makes a dish and we all get together. All are repackaged and redistributed for people to take home. The guys always try to find a football game but there's never a good one and they just flick between stations while one tries to pull up the guide, even though the sports stations cost extra and while on the guide, don't come in on the TV. Then everyone goes home. ;)

It's been a bone of contention to some extent over the years. My mom aspires to sit-down, but she never has enough space @ her dining table for everyone to sit comfortably w/o bumping elbows & all the dishes don't fit either. It's usually a hybrid of family-style w/ sideboards & self-service plus sit-down & pass the dishes that do fit on the table(s) - 2nd table in an adjacent room.

We serve family style. Everything on the table except dessert.

We serve ourselves buffet style, but then I put out the cranberry sauce, gravy, and minced peaches to pass at the table.

We do as sheilajoyce does: buffet with extras/sauces/etc. on the table.

Family style here, too.

My husband's uncle used to carve the bird at the table and did a masterful job. She was a home ec professor and the food was wonderful. And he attacked that beautiful bird with great skill and aplomb. He picked the furthest from him, looked you in the eye and said "dark or white" and proceeded to slice a neat slice or 2 from the proper spot. Then he cut a hole in the turkey behind the ribs and in front of the thigh and proceeded to spoon out a spoonful of stuffing, adn your plate went back to you and the next plate was passed while you filled your plate with wild rice and mushrooms, and greenbeans with pearl onions squash souffle etc etc! Good food at Aunt Tiny's house!

plated meal here

buffet style, as we invite a lot of folks, if we fit-16 people or less, we all sit at the dining table with gravy and a few other dishes on the table, the rest on a countertop or the island plenty tf space there we live in south texas, so sometimes (if it's not too cool or too hot) we use large tables on the screened porch

Someone mentioned the "kid's table". I hated that when I was young. I'd be, say, age 14 and put over with the kids (ages 10 and younger), and really resented not being able to converse with the adults.

At any rate -- if there's a lot of people (12 or more), buffet style works. I did serve T-Day dinner here once for eight of us, which made a good size for family-style serving.