It’s easy to start panicking around the holidays, especially if you’re hosting a Thanksgiving dinner at home. But while a little excited stress is good, too much will just ruin a vacation and is bad for your health. To avoid a stressful Thanksgiving, we’ve created a schedule you can use as a general guide to help with your home and dinner preparations.

The week before Thanksgiving

We begin our program with the week before the foodie holiday. The more you can set up in advance, the less rushed and less stressed you’ll be as Thanksgiving approaches. No one likes to find out they didn’t do all their grocery shopping the night before dinner for 12 people.

• First, WRITE YOUR MENU, recipes and all. You don’t want to search for the recipe when it’s time to cook. If it’s a recipe found online, print it out. If it’s a recipe in a book, mark it and write down the title and page number. We recommend no more than eight courses, including dessert. MAKE YOUR SHOPPING LIST at the same time you create your menu.
• ASK FOR YOUR TURKEY, unless you are happy to take whatever is available. When hosting a large gathering, it’s a good idea to reserve the type and size of turkey you want at your local grocery store, if they let you do so.
• HOW WOULD YOU PUT YOUR TABLE? Do you already have your seasonal tablecloth? All your china, silverware, and glassware? If not, this is the time to fix everything. You don’t want to find out you don’t have enough forks the day of.
• DRESS UP THE HOUSE – No Thanksgiving is complete without a little fall decorating for the house, or at least the dining room. Take care of all the cleaning and decorating of your house the week before to take a load off your shoulders when the week of madness begins.

thanksgiving week

1. Monday – Clean the fridge and do the grocery shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. Remember that at least part of your turkey is likely still frozen, so it needs time for it to thaw completely. This will take some time for an especially large turkey.
2. Tuesday – If you are going to bring your turkey, you must do it today. Also today, make your cakes (they will taste even better if made ahead of time because the spices take longer to develop), wash the dishes, and cut and dry the bread cubes for fillings.
3. Wednesday – If you are going to make homemade sauce, this is the moment to make your turkey broth with the neck, innards and vegetables. This is also when you want to do all the veg prep work like washing and shopping, so all you have to do on the day off is prep. Finally, set the table, make the filling and rolls or other bread.
4. Thanksgiving Morning/Afternoon – Don’t sleep on Thanksgiving morning. Get up early, have a hearty breakfast, grab a cup of coffee, and get started. Take the turkey out of the fridge to come to room temperature and place any beverages that need to chill in the fridge. First cook everything that needs to be baked in the oven so there are no interruptions when the turkey goes in and then have the turkey roast in the oven.
5. just before thanksgiving dinner – While the turkey rests, place all the prepared dishes in the oven to warm up while you prepare the sauce. Finally, take your pre-made cakes out of the fridge to come to room temperature.