domestic dilettante, humorless feminist shrew

This year for Thanksgiving, we’re headed to my parents’ house up on Lake Erie. It’s not quite what our original plans were, but my grandfather’s health is failing, and it seems likely he’s not going to make it to 2010. Hopefully he’ll be well enough to join us for supper–he’s currently in a rehabilitation facility, where he’s recovering from a recent fall.

Here are ten tips to make your holiday more awesome.

• Dress up your dressing. Don’t make bland dressing! Even if you’re just making it from a bag, you can fancy it up a bit. Sautee some onion, garlic, and/or carrots and mix it in. (Skip the celery everyone else suggests. Celery is made to be consumed with blue cheese, not cooked and used to contaminate your otherwise-delicious dressing.) Consider adding a handful of chopped, toasted nuts, dried cherries, or dried cranberries. My favorite dressing has onion, toasted pecans, and dried cherries in it.
  
  

• Let someone else help. If you’re hosting, don’t hesitate to tell people what they can bring. I like foisting pie-duty on other people; my mother’s passing off most of the side dishes this year. You’re making the turkey! You’re already the king of the kitchen.
  
  

• Give your turkey plenty of time to thaw! If you’re using a frozen turkey, it should already be in the fridge. You want to allow about one day per four pounds of turkey, and I like to add an extra day on, just to be safe. Attempting to cook a half-frozen turkey is loads of not fun.
  
  

• Keep the tableware simple. This isn’t the time to break out your super-fancy dishware with chargers and multiple plates per course. Decorate the table, but unless you want to be doing dishes all night, keep the dishware simple. One plate per person, plus a soup bowl or a salad plate.
  
  

• Don’t glut yourself. I say this less out of some puritanical desire to restrict the holiday festivities and more because turkey hangovers are awful. Thanksgiving is the holiday of leftovers–odds are good that all the food you’re looking at today is going to be around tomorrow, too. And the next day. And probably the day after that. Possibly the month after that, depending on how much you overestimated.
  
  

• Prep ahead of time. Veggies can be peeled and chopped, potatoes can be peeled (and put in water in the fridge so they don’t oxidize), pies can be baked, rolls can be baked (and frozen, even), soups can be made… Doing as much as possible ahead of time means that you’re more relaxed, plus you have more time to spend with your family and guests. Plus, everyone knows soup tastes better the next day.
  
  

• Watch what you’re feeding your pets. I totally get the desire to slip a bit of turkey or sweet potato to your pet, but watch that they don’t get too much. Especially with pets who don’t usually get table scraps, it doesn’t take a whole lot to unsettle their stomachs…and then you get to deal with the mess for the next three days.
  
  

• Freeze your leftovers. I like turkey as much as the next guy, but the fact of it is that after the giant Thanksgiving feast plus a day of leftovers, everybody’s tapped out on turkey. Don’t let it sit in your fridge, gazing at you sadly every time you open the door. Freeze it as soon as possible, before it has a chance get tough and dry.
  
  

• Buy a dishwasher. Okay, that won’t help you for this Thanksgiving–and, given the size of my kitchen, it’s unlikely to help me ever–but it’s something to consider. I don’t know about you guys, but the siren song of never handwash dishes again is pretty damn tempting for me.
  
  
• Let go of perfection. The first time I had people over for a holiday, I think I was about eighteen and living in Sacramento. I had a squalid apartment, and the seating options were a sofa left there by the last tenants or my air mattress. I drove myself crazy trying to make everything perfect, and…well, it didn’t go so great. Don’t aim for perfect. Aim for good enough–and remind yourself that sometimes, good enough is realizing that you’ve ruined the turkey, but everyone still loves you, the frozen lasagna you’re eating instead is pretty tasty, and in a few years, this is going to be a great story.

Tomorrow: 20 last-minute Thanksgiving side dishes.