How To Have A Stress Free Family Thanksgiving Dinner

It’s that time of the year again. Time to be grateful and give thanks for all the blessings God has bestowed upon you. It’s Thanksgiving! And we all want to celebrate it with the least amount of stress possible.

First stop and think about of the preparations you would like to do yourself, or should I say, feel up to doing yourself. Don’t plan to over exert yourself, by having to cook for a huge crowd.

By anticipating how you will feel, will help you determine how many people to invite. We know that we are expected to invite family, so do so. But also know that not all of your family will show up. Some of them, who might be married, or engaged or whatever, may be having Thanksgiving with their inlaws or friends.

Be understanding, and wish them a Happy Thanksgiving, and besides it makes less work for you. The less work, the less stress. Now make a list of those who are coming, and let’s move on.

Now you want to decide on the menu. Do you want to do a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, or something totally different? I suggest doing a traditional dinner. It would be a lot less stressful. Now don’t plan on doing the entire meal yourself, by all means get some help.

By that I mean, do a pot luck. Let the family know that you will be taking care of the turkey and dressing, cranberry sauce and the mac and cheese. Ask them to bring something, and you should give them suggestions, so they don’t all bring the same thing.

This will eliminate some of the pressure off you. They can bring a salad, some desert, beverages, even some paper plates and utensils. That’s right, I said paper plates, it’s family, they won’t mind. And it will make clean up so much easier for you. Now that’s a stress buster in itself.

Don’t leave out your husband and kids, they should help too. Since you are doing the preparations of food, have one of them, set the table for you. Maybe your husband should do that, if the kids are small.

Let kids help you with clean up. If you used paper plates, they can gather the trash together and take it out for you. They can clean the table off for you, husband can mop floor if needed and the work is done quick and easy. And if family volunteers to help, by all means say yes.

Now that dinner has gone well, and everyone is happy, before family leaves, say a prayer together. Thank God for allowing you all to assemble together once again, and pray that everyone makes it home safely. After they leave, put your feet up and enjoy the rest of your holiday relaxing, no stress.