Thanksgiving Tips; What I've Learned

Thanksgiving was fun! We all survived! LOL. It was great to have the family together, even though we missed KK, Jay, Keenan, my brother and his wife and daughters. I didn't get ANY pictures (sorry). We were right in the thick of it and I just plain forgot! So, here are some things that I learned from hosting my first Thanksgiving. Maybe I can save others from making the same mistakes and/or give you a couple ideas for your next holiday meal. Here we go:

1. Cook a little less food. I went over board (as always) and cooked way too much food! I seriously have enough cranberry sauce leftover that I could can and serve it for the next 5 Thanksgivings! At least no one could say they left hungry!

     2. Dishes. If I don't buy more plates between now and next year, I just may go with sturdy paper ones. I didn't have enough plates for everyone (which I knew ahead of time) so my mother brought some of hers over. I like the idea of using ''real'' plates, but I don't detest the idea of paper ones either. I think the main thing is that we are all together to share a meal and remember that we all have so much to be thankful for. I definitely need to get more serving dishes though! I didn't have enough serving dishes so we ended up putting food in large mixing bowls instead. Which did the job, but they took up way too much room on the table! I could really use a couple more serving utensils too. (In case you haven't noticed a trend, I really could use some kitchen equipment! We have what we need to get by on a day to day basis, but for special occasions or just a large group for that matter, we are lacking in the quantity area, lol) Also, if I had more small serving dishes, I would be able to set both tables with all the foods at the same time. We needed two tables for everyone, so we had to run food from one table to the other in order for everyone to get some of everything.

     3. Take home trays. Next year I will get some disposable take home trays so guests who would like to can take some goodies home with them. Plus, you don't have to worry about getting dishes back, or burden anyone with having to wash and return them.

     4. More prep work. I did make some things ahead, but there was lots of room for improvement in that area. If I had been more intentional at being organized, I could have done more ahead of time. I wish I had made the pies earlier and froze them. And I could have made the cranberry sauce earlier too. More cleaning in the days before wouldn't have hurt anything either. I used to get mad at myself because I would get stressed out over things not being done, and stay up way too late to get more accomplished. Now I'm mad at myself because I've gotten quite a bit better at letting things go, LOL. Somewhere in the middle would be nice ;-)

Well that is what I can think of that pops into my head at the moment for things that I could do differently. Does anyone else have some tips they would like to share? I'd love to hear them! I hope you all have a wonderful day! We have a heavy frost this morning. It is beautiful in the sunrise!