How to Prepare to Host Your First Thanksgiving Dinner

Countless people around the country enjoy a large meal on Thanksgiving Day. However, if you’ve never prepared a Thanksgiving dinner before the event can be a stressful time. Here are some tips to help you prepare to host your first ever Thanksgiving dinner.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Keep the event as small as possible. Since it’s the first Thanksgiving dinner you’ve ever hosted you should invite only family members and very close friends. This will help you keep everything simple and make Thanksgiving Day much easier to plan.

2. Plan your meal well ahead of time. Know exactly what food you want to serve and how you want it served. Do this in order to help eliminate the chance for any mishaps on Thanksgiving Day.

3. Conduct a dry run with a turkey at least a week before Thanksgiving Day. If you’ve never cooked a large turkey before you’ll need to know what you’re getting yourself into with the turkey. Cooking a turkey beforehand will give you that expertise.

4. Make sure to have all table settings bought a week before Thanksgiving. It would be awful to have the perfect Thanksgiving dinner and then not have enough silverware. Purchasing these items a week early will give you one less thing to worry about.

5. Buy your Thanksgiving turkey a week in advance. It may be cliché but too many people wait until the last minute to buy the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. Avoid this by purchasing the turkey well in advance.

6. Ask your guests to bring a small food item to Thanksgiving dinner. Asking your guests to bring a salad, dessert or a bottle of wine will take away some of the stress of preparing Thanksgiving dinner.

7. Keep the food simple. Don’t try to overdo it on your first Thanksgiving dinner. Go with the traditional turkey, stuffing, potatoes and squash. Wait until your next Thanksgiving dinner to go all out.

[nlroth1]

on 10/11/2009 Great ideas! You can also use iHost: Thanksgiving, an iphone app available on the App Store. It's an easy to use party planner that helps keep track of your guests, menu, recipes, budget, calendar and more.
It can also be used for planning other parties!
The recipes are simple - great for a first timer.

[Alisiane]

on 11/2/2008 I can't believe it's already November and already time to be thinking about this! Good tips for someone working on their first (or fortieth!) turkey :-)

[favefive]

on 11/16/2007 Excellent tips. I am hosting my very first big one this coming Thanksgiving. I have purchased most of the ingredients, except the ones I'd like to keep fresh. We are already setting up several tables moving our other furniture to accomodate them. I am excited, I know it will be fun. :)