Thanksgiving Prep

With Thanksgiving quickly approaching and our families descending on our house shortly, this weekend was all about Thanksgiving prep.

While Josh and I are avid dinner party throwers, we are Thanksgiving novices. We do, however, hope that Thanksgiving isn't much more complicated than a large sit down Shabbat meal. That said, we felt it was very important to do as much prep as possible. In 2 short days we went to 3 markets and the butcherie. Josh also did yard work while I did laundry and cleaned up. On top of all of that, we made a practice meal (details on that tomorrow!). It was a busy, but fun weekend.

We started on Saturday morning by making lists, and lists, and lists. I had already made a list of what we were serving and who was bringing what. From there, Josh and I made an ingredient list and went through our cabinets to see what we still needed. Luckily, that list wasn't too long...but unfortunately, we were not able to get everything we needed at one store.

First we had to go to Star Market to get the majority of the staples on our list. As always, they had almost all of what we needed, but not everything.

Later on in the day, we went to Whole Foods for parve sour cream and 2 different Trader Joe's, one for wine and one for soy creamer. Ah the joys of grocery shopping. Good thing we live very close to all of those stores.

We spent the evening getting our house ready. We picked out a table cloth and napkins, choose which serving pieces we were going to use, and added some details to our china cabinet in an effort to make our dinning room look nice. 

please ignore the tilt!

I went to bed feeling organized and almost ready for the big day to arrive.

On Sunday, we started off our day at a spin class and then had brunch with some good friends, both of which were really fun. As if we had not been to enough markets on Saturday, after brunch we ran to the Butcherie. We needed marshmallows and some appetizers. I was very excited that we rolled up to the butcherie during a lull and were able to get in and out in less than 15 minutes. That NEVER happens.

To add to the weekend fun, we had a little turkey drama. On Friday after work, Josh stopped to buy a turkey at Trader Joe's. We were really excited because they sell kosher turkey at a reasonable price. To make it better, they even had organic! On Sunday, I took the turkey out for a quick photo shoot. Upon inspection of the photos I noticed something very important missing.

There was no hecsher! Clearly I have calmed down a lot lately because I didn't even get upset with Josh about the mix up, I just told him to fix it :) Thank goodness Trader Joe's was so understanding. They took the turkey back and let Josh buy a new kosher turkey that was also organic. Phew! Talk about a close call.

With 3 days go, I think we are really prepared for Thanksgiving. I'm actually very impressed with our ability to plan ahead, stay organized, and have fun while doing it. Hopefully everything continues to go smoothly.