The other 2-thirds surveyed didn’t have to buy the groceries.
You’re right about 2/3 didn’t have to buy their groceries. They got their turkeys free at the drive thru food banks. If you need to raise your blood pressure, do a search on youtube for “food band hauls”. You’ll find people complaining their pistachios aren’t shelled, throwing non-kosher food in the garbage instead of sharing and people bragging they use food banks so they can afford weekly seafood feasts.
I calculated what our normal $30 dinner would cost today and it worked out to 33% more. I know our income hasn’t kept up with food prices much less anything else. We played it simple with no one coming over so the bare minimum side dishes. Refused to play the fake turkey shortage so pulled a chicken out of the freezer (saved the raw wings for a future batch of hot wings) and scrounged around for waaay less pecans than called for in a pecan pie and dug around the drawer for a spoon small enough to dig the yolks out of teeny tiny “large” eggs for deviled eggs. But it was all good and we stuffed ourselves.
Yes soup isn’t much of a Thanksgiving dinner.