Host a Thanksgiving that Everyone Will Enjoy

Creating a feast that everyone will enjoy and look forward to doing again the following year is a challenge. As a veteran of hosting Thanksgiving dinners, I've developed a few techniques that will lighten your burden and assure everyone is full and happy by the end of the day.

I start Thanksgiving by sending a themed invitation with an RSVP to all my family. I just tell them that it's my way of creating a "tradition". I try to make it fun so that they don't realize that I'm doing it to get an exact total of all the people that are going to be coming.

After I get the RSVPs, I begin planning the meal. I start with the turkey and calculate between 1 ½ to 2 pounds per person. It sounds like a lot, but people over eat at Thanksgiving.

After calculating the amount of turkey, I begin my yearly call to ask relatives to bring a dish. Every family has a relative that has a signature dish, like Aunt Mary's cranberry salad or Uncle Bob's baked beans. It's another "tradition" I've created and everyone enjoys contributing something.

When everyone is committed to bring food, I plan the rest of the meal. If I'm lucky, the only other items I provide are the rolls, drinks, and a salad. I usually buy ready to bake rolls and make a vinaigrette salad. A rule of thumb for drinks is four per person including water and coffee

Forget about the Norman Rockwell sit down dinner. Why suffer with place settings when you can do a buffet style Thanksgiving. I also use paper plates and utensils with Thanksgiving themes. It's festive and it saves time on clean up.

Keep grumpy guests busy. I enlist my troublesome relatives to help with various tasks and keep them running right through to clean up. This way they can't get on anybody's nerves and it relieves some of my burden. They also feel good about themselves because they've help get dinner on the table.

With the grumpy guests busy, other people watching football, you can keep everyone else busy by helping the younger children make a Thanksgiving keepsake. You can buy them at any craft store or off the internet. After they're done with the craft, it will be time for dinner, then dessert, and by then they'll be too tired to do anything else.

References:

Thanksgiving Craft Ideas

Butterball Portions Calculator

Martha Stewart Thanksgiving Ideas