Your Thanksgiving dinner still costs way more than it did before the pandemic

• The price of a 10-person Thanksgiving dinner at home is $61.17 this year.
• That's down 4.5% from a year ago — but still 25% higher than in 2019 before the pandemic.

Inflation-weary Americans are finally getting some relief with the price of Thanksgiving dinner down 4.5% from last year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, or AFBF.

The average cost of a Thanksgiving meal at home for 10 persons is $61.17 this year as compared to $64.05 last year.

However, since prices were at a historic high last year, Thanksgiving dinners at home are still 25% higher compared to 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the AFBF.

The price for such a meal was $48.91 in 2019.

The AFBF based its assessment on a survey from all 50 states and Puerto Rico collected between November 1 and November 6. The survey includes prices of products used in a classic Thanksgiving meal, including turkey, fresh cranberries, and whipping cream.

A 16-pound frozen whole turkey, which costs $27.35 on average, accounted for 45% of the price of Thanksgiving dinner this year. A similar turkey cost $28.96 last year and accounted for a similar share in the basket of food.

The fall in the price of a Thanksgiving dinner comes after a cooling in US inflation amid relentless interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.

The Fed has raised interest rates 11 times since March 2022 to cool soaring prices that rose 3.2% in October from a year ago — down from a four-decade high of 9.1% year-over-year increase in June 2022. But, that's still above the Fed's 2% inflation target.

If it's any consolation, the cost of Thanksgiving dinners is likely to fall over time — which means it will be cheaper for your children to host dinner, Deutsche Bank research strategist Jim Reid wrote in a note on Wednesday.

"Over the very long run, agricultural prices have tended to decline in real terms" when inflation is taken into account, Reid wrote in the note, which was viewed by Business Insider.

For instance, the price of wheat fell 1.2% per year over the last 150 years while an index of food prices has fallen 1.6% per year since 1947, even after accounting for periods when prices gained strongly, he added.

The long-term trend of falling food prices reflects improved productivity for commodities.

"So rest assured that if history is to be believed, the cost of your Thanksgiving meal will probably fail to keep up with general inflation for the rest of your lives, even if there are periods where the cost does increase for a while," wrote Reid.