Thanksgiving. Not so hard.

Like M. LeBlanc, I love hostessing, but am anti-stress about the whole shebang (note the rules on that link). Tonight the roommate and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for a total of ten people (including us). Neither of us had ever made turkey before. Here's how it all went down:

Tuesday: buy turkey breast (thank goodness roommate knows how long 8 pounds of meat takes to thaw!), cheese, and bread
Wednesday: buy wine, more cheese, and yeast to make more bread. plan to vacuum house and wash clothes, decide to sit on couch instead
Thursday:

• awake at 9, make coffee and orange rolls, watch parade, read the paper
• noon - start vacuuming house while bread bakes
• 1 - break for bread and cheese with roommate, start on first bottle of wine
• 2 - friend stops by to join in bread and cheese merriment, start additional loaf in breadmaker, roommate starts turkey
• sit on couch and pour through 1.5 bottles of wine with good company until 5 (roommate takes occasional breaks to baste turkey...asks, "basting basically means melted butter, right?")
• 5 - finish vacuuming house
• 5:30 shower and finally put on something other than pajamas
• 5:50 - bring extra table upstairs, set ten places
• 6 - guests arrive
• 6-12:30 - lovely dinner, lovely dessert, many lovely bottles of wine, several rounds of taboo and cranium. one brief interruption to start dishwasher and another to realize turkey has been sitting out for five hours and probably should be put in fridge. Wonderful realization that enough of turkey has been consumed that leftovers fit in largest tupperware, without any additional carving, and the whole thing fits in the fridge!
• 1am - house totally back to normal, dishwasher unloaded and reloaded, and roommate even scrubbed a few dishes by hand

So I have to say, not such a big deal. Granted, we cheated quite a bit, what with making a turkey breast instead of the whole damn bird, and doing the rest of the meal potluck style (guests brought yams, root vegetables, green bean casserole, chicken, lentils, rice, stuffing, pumpkin bread, pies, and chocolate chip cookies) but still - tons of food, good company, and time enough to enjoy it all. As the roommate and I toasted several times during cleanup - Success!