Tuesday Tips – Your Thanksgiving Meal – Planning Ahead

Wow! is it Tuesday already? This week went by so fast. I think they are going by faster and faster every week. Don’t you? Well, happy Tuesday to you all. And Thank you for stopping by for another edition of Tuesday Tips. This week we are starting our 5 week Thanksgiving Meal Guide to planning ahead. Over the next 5 weeks, you will have tasks to complete, items to purchase and areas of your home to prep/organize in advance for the big day.

5 Weeks ahead – Here are 5 tips to get your Thanksgiving Meal plan started. Planning ahead will ease some of the stress off for the big event.

Tip 1 – Before you can start planning your menu and sorting out the details of your Thanksgiving Meal, you must first decide what kind of dinner you will be hosting. Are you having a formal affair or will it be casual. How many and who will be on your guest list? Write all of this down! Will you be doing all of the cooking, or will you be asking dinner guests to contribute a dish to the menu? Once you have the answers to those questions, you can move forward.Now that you know the who, what, where and how, Plan out your menu ideas. Write down what you will definitely make, some new recipes you would like to try and how much of each ingredient you will need.

Tip 2 – Shop for what you can early. If you have any special orders (a fresh turkey, specialty pies, honey baked ham ect..) call the shop and get your order in now. In 2 or 3 weeks, they will be so over whelmed with customers you might not be able to get your order in on time. Keep an eye on your grocery fliers over the next 4 weeks. Pick up an extra can of vegetables or cranberry sauce each time you go to the store. You have your menu list made, you know what you will need. Get it when it is the cheapest.

Tip 3 – Freezer Cooking! This is my new favorite thing honestly. If you are cooking or baking something over the next few weeks that you would like to also make for Thanksgiving, make a little extra. Use these FREEZER TIPS to properly package your dish and toss it in the freezer. That is one less thing you will have to make from scratch on that day. When you are adding things to your freezer, be sure to sort through what you already have in there to make room for your Thanksgiving Meal items. Clean out the old and cook it up. You will need room for a turkey, baked goods, freezer meals ect.. Do it as you go then it is not as daunting a chore as it would be the week before Thanksgiving.

Tip 4 –Have a Baking day – We all love to make and share delicious treats and baked good around the holidays. Why not make a day of it? My mother in law and I use to spend an entire weekend baking cookies, breads and homemade candy. We would freeze them in freezer safe containers, each layer seperated with wax paper. When we did this we did double the work that day. Half went for our Thanksgiving Meal and the other half went for our Christmas Meal. They will hold up for a long time if you take the proper steps to package them correctly when freezing.

Tip 5 – Have a Craft day – Just like baking, you can make a day of crafting for your Thanksgiving table scape as well. bring the natural elements from the outside in and create some wonderful centerpieces, place settings and decor to make your table pop. Get the kids involved and make it a family affair as well. You can find inspiration HERE on our Fall Favorites Pinterest board.

Your tasks for this week (5 weeks ahead):

1. Make guest list and plan your menu
2. Gather recipes and decide who is cooking what
3. Buy atleast 3 things at the store that you will need for your Thanksgiving Meal. (This can be as simple as a can of cranberry sauce or as big as the bird itself. Depends on your own budget)
4. Make 1 dish you can freeze and store it in the freezer. If you aren’t comfortable freezing ahead the dishes for your big meal, your task is to clean out your fridge/freezer a little each day to make room for essential Thanksgiving Meal items.

Lets stop there for this week, we don’t want to get to overwhelmed to quickly. We still have 5 weeks to go.If you can implement the steps above into your weekly routine as much as possible, the small things you do today will make a big difference in what needs to be done on Thanksgiving day itself.

Need Thanksgiving Meal ideas? Check out our RECIPES PAGE for inspiration. You can also see what we are in love with this year by following our Holiday Pinterest Boards!

---

I do hope you found this Tuesday Tip to be useful. If you would like to see all our past Tuesday Tips, please click HERE.  This is WEEK 1 of our 5 week Thanksgiving Meal Planning ahead series! Be sure to sign up for our NEWSLETTER to get all our Tuesday Tips, Recipes, and Projects right to your in box!

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK or FOLLOW US ON TWITTER to be the first to know when we add new goodies!