Ahhh Thanksgiving. One of my favorite holidays of the year, right there next to Christmas. When my husband celebrated his first Thanksgiving with me eight years ago, he lovingly said to me, “It’s like a trial run for Christmas.” I laugh at that every year. I never thought of it that way, but he has a point. I don’t know about you, but over the years, I’ve made sure to perfect my Christmas recipes over Thanksgiving. My husband and I have also used this time to get our systems in place. What systems? I’m so glad you asked. Let’s talk about our holiday set-up system.
What is a holiday set-up system?
It really is simple. A holiday set-up system is where you ensure you have everything in place when it comes time to sit down with your family and friends. This means you have your table set, your meal is cooking away, you may have prepared some food ahead of time, your home is clean and tidy, and you’re cleaning the kitchen as you go.
Let’s go over our typical Thanksgiving set-up.
Step 1: Clean Your Fridge
The Monday before Thanksgiving, I clean out our fridge. Yes, the dreaded deep clean of the fridge. I dig through old condiments and leftover containers and purge our fridge of anything that's crusty and dusty. Once all the gross things are discarded, I take everything else out and give it a good wipe down. The start of this process is kind of intimidating, and it may even be one of those projects you wish you would have never started. However, the finished product is so satisfying, you’ll thank yourself for having done it.
Step 2: Clean Your Space and Set Your Table
I usually give our house a good clean once a week. During the holidays, I like to make sure the kitchen, living area, and guest bathroom are my main focus. These are the high traffic areas. The rest of the house isn’t getting neglected, we’re just giving these areas a bit more love. Our kitchen especially since we’ll be using it all day. We like to make sure we have a clean area and lots of open counter space to create the most delicious meal. We also make sure to set our table. That way we don’t have to worry about it on the day. Having these things done helps keep our mind clear, which is always helpful when dealing with the hustle and bustle of holiday cooking/hosting.
Step 3: Plan and Shop
I love planning out the meal that we’re going to eat and shopping for it. I usually plan what we’re going to have a few weeks in advance. A majority of our food, I know, will be recipes that we always have and those recipes never change. Other items, like the cranberry sauce, I like to get a bit creative with and try different recipes. Once I know everything we’re having, I make a list of everything we’ll need from the store. Then I come home and start unloading the items and putting them away into my sparkly, clean fridge. Yay!
Step 4: Pre-make What You Can
Pre-making some of your sides ahead of time is a game changer. It might be a no-brainer for some, but trust me, once I started doing this, it made the actual day run so much smoother. For example, I always brine our turkey. This is a labor of love, sure, but the end result is a deliciously juicy turkey. I remember the yea I brought home a frozen turkey. My husband thought frozen meat was blasphemous. I assured him the brine would be a game changer. He was skeptical but trusted the process. That turkey changed all future turkey for us. Brining is a crucial step in our Thanksgiving set-up.
Another thing I prepare ahead of time is our morning scones. I always like to make homemade scones for breakfast on Thanksgiving and Christmas morning. I always make the dough the day before. That way, the dough has time to set in the fridge and all I have to do the morning of is roll out the dough and pop them in the oven.
The next thing I like to prepare ahead of time is the cranberry sauce. Cranberry sauce is sort of the underdog when it comes to Thanksgiving sides. You think no one likes it, but trust me, when it’s not on the table, someone always notices. I know this because it happened to me one year.
Now, the last thing I’ll prepare ahead of time this year is my green bean casserole. I’ve never done this before, but I usually always forget to make this until the last-minute Thanksgiving Day. At least if I have everything in the casserole dish ready to go, all I’ll have to do is pop it in the oven. Preparing things ahead of time will definitely make your day easier.
Step 5: Clean as You Go
My husband is just as much of a neat freak as me, if not even more. One thing we started doing over the years is cleaning as we go. We run the dishwasher a lot. We hand wash a lot. We wipe down counter spaces after every use. It sounds overkill, and you may think, why bother if I’m just going to make another mess? But trust me when I say that it makes the end of the night clean up so much easier. Since we cleaned up throughout the day, it doesn’t look like an explosion happened in our kitchen at the end of the night.
When we first started hosting Thanksgiving eight years ago, we had nothing in place, and we would simply wing it. And let me tell you something, everything still turned out great! If you take anything away from this post, it should be this: systems aren’t necessary to make your holiday perfect. It will never be perfect. Systems simply help you enjoy your day a little more and stress a little less. At the end of the day, it’s all about spending quality time with your family and friends and eating some really good food.
Until next week! Emily xx
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