Not every family tradition has to be yours forever. You can keep the love and change the menu.

Traditions get treated as a package deal, where changing any part means rejecting the whole family. Usually the thing people actually care about is being together, and everything else is just how it has always been done. The menu, the timing, the specific chair, those were practical decisions somebody made once and nobody revisited.

If one has stopped working for you, propose a single change instead of skipping the day entirely. Different food, an earlier start, a shorter visit. Say what you are keeping while you say what you are changing, because the worry underneath is rarely about the food.