Hosting Thanksgiving: Best Tips to Make Things Easier

Hosting Thanksgiving is wonderful but it can get a little chaotic and a lot chaotic.  These tips will help you make it a little easier and less stressful!  Hope you have a fantastic Thanksgiving!We love Thanksgiving around here!  We host every year and have a ton of people that have, over the years, become family.  It brings us great joy through cooking, decorating and planning!

I’ve compiled these tips that I’ve learned from hosting Thanksgiving with anywhere from 7 to 35 people each year.  I appreciate every new tip I learn that makes things easier and hope you do also.

One year, when we lived in a 3 bedroom townhouse we had 25 people in the house! It was insane but we somehow made it work. Such wonderful memories and so much fun. Of course, it was more fun once the work was done…

Best Tips for Hosting Holidays

1. Make lists and plan to break things up on different days! That way you don’t get quite so overwhelmed, and you can see your progress as you mark things off of your list.
2. Do everything you can in advance!  Many recipes can be made ahead and frozen (like cheeseballs, cookies, cakes).  Start those early!
3. Slice and chop vegetables you’ll need for recipes up to 3 days before you need them, just seal them in an air tight container
4. Pies can be prepared ahead of time then frozen until a couple of days before you want to bake them.
5. Use your crock pot!  Find a side dish that can be cooked in your crock pot and you’ll have one less thing taking up your oven and stove.  Plus, most crock pot recipes can be prepared the night before then you just have to start it when you are ready!
6. If something messes up, don’t worry!  It’s not that big of a deal, it won’t be remembered, and that one thing isn’t the reason you are celebrating anyway!  Take a deep breathe and remember that!
7. Remind yourself that your guests didn’t come because your house was somehow rumored to be perfect, they came because they love you!  So if you forgot to deep clean something, or clean it at all, don’t feel bad or even apologize for missing it!  They don’t care, and that’s one other thing no one will remember!
8. Breathe!!! You will make it through and the event will be a wonderful memory for all, whether perfect or not so remember to breathe and be thankful for everything and everyone.

 Do you have any tips or shortcuts?

We’re all ears!

(In one of those ‘I’m sorry but I’m not sorry’ moments, enter my pun. Which makes me smile every time I see it because I’m a child. haha. Enjoy. Or don’t. Either way, I am not sorry. LOL)