They crave the familiar. That's why you've had the exact same menu for Thanksgiving dinner since you were old enough to chew meat, there are 500 adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, your town's 4th of July Parade has had the same units in the same order for the last fifty years, the new West Side Story looks exactly like the old one, there was a riot when Chevrolet decided to put the engine in the Corvette behind the seats, and they're making an origin story of Willy Wonka.
I also kinda believe the reason for Thanksgiving dinner is to embarrass the person who has to make it. Let's be blunt: the most uncookable dish in the entire American culinary canon is a whole turkey. If you cook it long enough to get the legs up to 165 degrees, half the body will come out so hard you can sharpen it and use it to carve the breasts. This is why stuffing was invented: cramming the cavity with soggy bread isn't done because soggy bread is so appetizing, it's because you're trying to get some moisture into the middle of the turkey. And most people only cook a meal with twenty dishes once a year, so they lose track of time. Add to that your house must be perfect, your table setting must be perfect, your hair, makeup, dress and jewelry must be perfect, your children must behave perfectly...and if you fuck it up, which you will, your family will talk shit behind your back for the next year and you'll be held out as some kind of failed wife whose marriage will soon come to an end. Needless to say, I'm doing a beef knuckle in my Traeger this year. All I need do is season the meat, poke it with the temperature probe, set the alarm to 155 degrees and let the machine deal with the problem.
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