Time to Give Thanks

Thanksgiving is on its way. This year I have a plan. I'm not going to get stressed out, I want to actually enjoy visiting with the family instead of running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, or should I say turkey.

The first step of my plan is to figure out how many people are coming. I am sending out invitations with a R.S.V.P date. I need to know who will be coming as soon as possible so I put the R.S.V.P date as November 10^th. With a large family, I rarely know is going to show up until the day before thanksgiving.

Now I can figure out a menu I don't need to know how many people will be coming to dinner to make a menu. I start from appetizers and work my way to desserts for example.

Appetizers:

Meat and cheese tray w/crackers

Vegetable tray w/dip

Side dishes:

Mashed Potatoes w/gravy

Apple salad, Green Salad, Dinner rolls

Green bean casserole

Stuffing

Sweet potatoes

Main dishes:

Baked Ham

Roasted Turkey

Desserts:

Pumpkin pie

Lemon pie

Chocolate pie

Coconut cream pie

Banana pudding

These are just the things my family likes to have on Thanksgiving. That is a heck of a lot of food; I'm not going to make that all myself, and so I am passing some of it to family members. The way I usually do this is assigning the dishes to the family members that makes it the best for example my grandmother makes great sweet potatoes so she gets the dish. Working it that way you get the best dish everyone makes yummy yummy.

Make the items you can before hand. The pies can all be made the day before Thanksgiving. You can either buy the vegetable and meat and cheese trays or make them a day or two ahead of time and store them in the fridge. Now that I have everything already made or assigned out, I will only have the ham and turkey to make on Thanksgiving Day. I have a roaster for the turkey and will bake the ham in the oven. This way I can prepare them both at the same time. That will leave just reheating before dinner can be served.

By doing as much as possible before hand, I can now visit with my friends and family on Thanksgiving while they are at home instead of having to call them after they've all gone home. Now that is something to be thankful for.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!