Courtesy of Apartments.com
Happy Thanksgiving Friends,
Welcome to holiday season! While you are probably still working your way through your Halloween candy, it’s time to put the costumes away and focus on the next Big Day: Thanksgiving! So grab a ghost-shaped marshmallow treat and check your messages – you’ll probably come across several invites, instructions from that one take-charge family member telling you what you’ll be bringing this year, and questions about parties, get-togethers, and trips.
Along with the holidays comes a healthy dose of stress – we all know it. There’s the budget for gift-giving to consider, food to prepare, family drama to navigate. And if it’s your turn to host the Friendsgiving – or the whole the family is coming to your home for Thanksgiving this year – you might be experiencing just a touch more stress than usual. To make things easier on yourself, here are three tips to help you get through Thanksgiving Dinner relatively stress-free (if relatives are coming over, then “relatively” is a relative term).
1. Assign tasks to others
Make this easy on yourself. There’s no reason why anyone should show up on your doorstep empty-handed. Ask everyone to bring a dish, keeping in mind each person’s abilities. If your cousin can’t boil water, for example, don’t ask your cousin to make a casserole. Non-cooking options include bringing the drinks, the dinner rolls, the napkins, or some chips and dip. A step up from that would be making the salad, a cheese platter, crudité, or an olive tray. Assign more skilled friends and family members things like casseroles, roasted sweet potatoes, desserts, etc. Essentially, you should only have to worry about making the main dish (turkey, ham, tofurky, whatever) and getting your home ready for company.
2. Go disposable
Think about it before you brush this suggestion aside. You can find some fancy disposable dinnerware out there, perfect for holiday celebrations and dinner parties. Imagine being able to spend more time talking to your guests, watching football, and generally relaxing after dinner rather than trying to wash all of those dishes. Disposable is the way to go. Sure, you’ll still have the cookware to contend with, but without dishes, glassware, and silverware, you’ve cut your clean-up time in half.
3. Be prepared
Make lists. You’ll want to shop early – your turkey needs at least two or three days to defrost, depending on the weight. Hosting Thanksgiving isn’t something you can do last-minute (unless you order an already-cooked turkey, which is an option if you need it).
Quick truth: You will forget something, even if you made your list and checked it twice (winking at you, Santa). Check now to see which of your neighborhood grocery stores are open on Thanksgiving. That way, when you have to make that mad dash to the store because you forgot the green beans or Bill showed up without the dinner rolls you assigned him, you'll be ready to go.
Prepare your space. Know ahead of time where everyone will sit! Cut down on the confusion and mayhem of too many people gathered in a small space by making sure you have enough chairs for everyone. Make a seating chart – this not only gets you organized, but it will help you keep your feuding siblings from sitting too close to each other.
Take shortcuts. Call a service to clean your house or apartment a day or two before so you won't have to worry about it.. Assign jobs to people. For example, if you have a friend who is great at crafts, ask them to make the centerpiece for the table. Buy pre-made items where you can! That store-bought pumpkin pie will save you time and free up your oven for those must-make dishes, like Grandma’s sweet potato soufflé.
Make as much as you can ahead of time. Yes, you’ll have to reheat everything the day of, but making a dish of stuffing and a big salad the day before takes those items off your to-do list so you can focus on other things.
Finally, set up snack and drink stations outside of the kitchen. You will be busy preparing, heating, and prepping. The last thing you need are guests wandering in to find something to nibble on or a drink to sip while watching the game. These areas should have bowls of chips, salsa, finger foods, crudité, cheese and crackers, and whatever else you can think of. For drinks, don’t forget to fill an ice bucket and have that out, along with glassware, or your guests will be searching for those in the kitchen.
There! You're all set to host Thanksgiving. The dishes are assigned, your space is ready, and you've taken shortcuts where possible. Now, take a deep breath and relax. You've got this!
Enjoy family and good friends...
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Live well,
Yvonne
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