7 Tips for a Stress-freeThanksgiving

                                                                                         

I am excited about Thanksgiving. My daughter, son-in-law and my grandson are coming for a week. They live 13 hours away from us so it is a treat to see them. It is one of the things I am thankful for.
A well planned Thanksgiving is the key to a stress-free day of celebration. When we are organized for Thanksgiving Day we will have more time to do what we want to be doing on the holiday instead of feeling overwhelmed and harried and left out of the fun. Here are my favorite shortcut tips for Thanksgiving.
1. Keep the kids from being underfoot by creating a craft area for them. Set up tables and have lots of paper, crayons, pens, tape and glue available for them to create. Ask the older children to be in charge. They could make placemats, name tags to wear and name tags for the table for family and guests. If your dinner table is too fancy for paper placemats these can be used on the children's table. They could be in charge of folding the napkins in fancy shapes, again being taught by the older children.
2. Share the workload with others. Make a list of all the dinner preparation jobs by time slot and ask everyone to sign up for a specific task. No one feels someone else is being a slacker when it is time to be out of the kitchen and no one has to be the kitchen martyr. (there's one in every family) Children can be involved with simple jobs. Be sure clean up jobs will be on the chart to sign up for. After the kitchen is cleaned, then desert can be served. By that time some of the meal has had time to settle a little.
3. Serve dinner on beautiful sturdy paper plates instead of china which has to be hand washed. If not used for the adults, for the children. Their tables can be covered with butcher paper and they can draw pictures of what they are thankful for.
4. One of my favorite tricks is to set the table the day before. Elicit help from anyone who moves. Show them how you want it set and let them do the job. It is lovely on Thanksgiving morning to walk into the room and see the table looking beautiful. It gives you a feeling all is well with the world. For each serving dish label what food will go in that dish. This will keep the table organized in the last few minutes before serving everything and makes life easier for those helping, and if you need extra serving pieces you will know before the last minute.
5. Potluck dinners can be a hit with everyone. Whoever is the hostess cooks the turkey and has the festive table setting along with the cozy home. Everyone who comes for dinner is assigned a dish to share. There are always compliments and exchanging of recipes and stories of past holidays. Sometimes the stories are about the disasters that happened to our favorite food which we can all relate to and laugh about. It could be the story of the rolls you are famous for because they are so light or are as heavy as rocks, the pie crust is stiff, something was burned—I am sure you have probably experienced the same thing at your home. But there is always enough food that no one goes away hungry.
6. Consider buying a fresh turkey which doesn't have to be defrosted. Use boxed dressing and spice it up the way you like it. Buy several kinds of gravy, heat them all together and serve.
7. The more you can do before the big day the better and remember to delegate so you too can be thankful and not frazzled on Thanksgiving.
No matter how you organize your Thanksgiving dinner make it as stress free as you can for everyone and from my home to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.


Marilyn Bohn's Bio
Marilyn is a creative and happy organizer who has been organizing for over 20 years. She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers and is working towards becoming a Certified Professional Organizer. She holds a bachelors degree in Social Work. She has reared five daughters and currently lives in Utah.
For more tips on organizing go to her website http://www.marilynbohn.com where you can find free organizing tips, interesting blogs and helpful articles on organizing. Read her free tips on how to organize a bedroom closet.

About the author:
Marilyn is a creative organizer who has been organizing for over 20 years. She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers.She holds a bachelors degree in Social Work. She has reared five daughters and currently lives in Utah.
For more tips on organizing go to her website http://www.marilynbohn.com where you can find free organizing tips and blogs. Download her free report on how to organize a bedroom closet.

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