Yikes!

We are just four days away from Thanksgiving! This month has flown by. Normally at this point of Thanksgiving week, my tree would be decked, and a flurry of baking would be taking place in the kitchen.

As I write tonight my tree is still packed up in the basement, Audley is working on a few lingering projects at home, and “Christmas Vacation” is playing in the background of my hotel room while I’m in Nashville for the Junior Beta Club Convention. My elementary students have had a great weekend and I love to see their enthusiasm for educational endeavors and our middle schoolers are arriving tonight, but oh how I wish it was another weekend than right before Thanksgiving!

I daresay a man who doesn’t have a clue about getting “holiday ready” planned it. HA!

As is tradition, we will spend our Thanksgiving Day at my parents’ house along with some of my children, my siblings, nieces and nephews. It is always such a big deal; something I look forward to each year, and such a special time. Since I am busy with Beta Club until Tuesday, planning and organizing my Thanksgiving plans has been of upmost importance to compensate for a lack of time. Audley and I purchased most of our holiday groceries a couple of weeks back, just leaving us the fresh items on our list. I’ll pick those up Tuesday as I head home.

As I mentioned, we’ll be at Dad and Momma’s for the holiday. We all pitch in dinner and start with a flurry of text messages around the last of October tossing around ideas and nailing down the menu. Our Thanksgiving recipes are rooted in American as well as family heritage, plus a few surprises. With a large family, we serve both turkey and ham. Momma always takes care of the ham, and I generally handle the turkey. My sisters, sister-in-law, Samantha, Madeline, and I also plan for an abundance of sides and desserts. No one leaves hungry and generally we don’t have to cook on Friday either.

Open-faced turkey sandwich with gravy anyone?

Everyone leads a pretty busy life these days, but the key to stress-free entertaining is organization and to plan ahead, especially when it comes to the Thanksgiving meal. With a little planning and prep everything will come together nicely for a big holiday gathering. I’m a list maker, so first I jotted down my contributions to the Thanksgiving feast. From this list it’s easy to make my grocery list, prioritizing when certain items are to be purchased. This year my contributions are as follows: turkey stuffed with citrus and fresh herbs, corn pudding, possibly oyster stuffing, cranberry relish, pumpkin pies, and bourbon pecan pie.

I don’t know about you, but any holiday having a timeline is a huge help for me. I begin light planning and prep at the beginning of November and have everything laid out in writing to get me through Thanksgiving. Some of the things included in my timeline is thawing time for the turkey (your own turkeys should be in the refrigerator by now), making the menu and grocery list, making sure you have proper cook’s tools to prepare everything, and details on when to begin preparing your foods.

Generally everything is written in my planner, but having something pinned to the refrigerator is a huge help as well. Here is a graphic I created that you could print off to print and hang for yourself.

Just click to download and print!

The joy of preparation and organization is the time it leaves for you to enjoy the company of your family! How do you organize your holiday dinners? Let me know if this little timeline is helpful for you.

Up next: my cranberry relish recipe. You’ll never open a can of cranberry jelly again!