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

The week before Thanksgiving

We start our schedule with the week before the foodie vacation. The more you can set up in advance, the less rush and less stressed you’ll be as Thanksgiving approaches. No one likes to realize that you didn’t do all of your shopping the night before the 12-person dinner.

• First, WRITE YOUR MENU, recipes and everything. You don’t want to search for the recipe when it’s time to cook. If it’s a prescription 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 dishes, including dessert. MAKE YOUR SHOPPING LIST at the same time you create your menu.
• ASK FOR YOUR TURKEY, unless you are happy to get what is available. When you are hosting a large gathering, it is wise to reserve the type and size of turkey you want at your local grocery store, if they allow it.
• HOW WILL YOU SET YOUR TABLE? Do you have your seasonal tablecloth? All your plates, silverware, and glassware? If not, this is the time to fix everything. You don’t want to know that you don’t have enough forks on the day of.
• Dress up the house: No Thanksgiving is complete without a little fall décor 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 yourself when the week of madness arrives.

Thanksgiving Week

1. Monday – Clean the refrigerator and do your grocery shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. Remember that at least part of your turkey is likely still frozen, so it takes time for it to completely thaw. This will take some time for an especially large turkey.
2. Tuesday – If you are bringing your turkey, you must do it today. Also today, prepare your cakes (they will taste even better if they are made ahead of time because spices take longer to develop), wash the dishes and cut and dry the bread cubes to fill.
3. Wednesday – If you are going to make homemade sauce, this is the time to make your turkey broth with the neck, giblets, and vegetables. This is also when you want to do all the veggie prep work, like washing and chopping, so all you have to do on the day off is put it together. Finally, set the table, make the filling and the rolls or another type of bread.
4. Thanksgiving Morning / Afternoon – Don’t sleep on Thanksgiving morning. Get up early, have a good breakfast, have a cup of coffee, and get started. Take the turkey out of the refrigerator to bring it to room temperature and place the drinks that need to be cooled in the refrigerator. Cook everything that needs to be baked in the oven first so there are no interruptions when the turkey comes in and then get the turkey to roast in the oven.
5. Right before Thanksgiving dinner – While the turkey is resting, place all the pre-made dishes in the oven to heat while you prepare the sauce. Finally, take the pre-made cakes out of the refrigerator to bring them to room temperature.