Preparations for Thanksgiving

1. Get house cleaned within 1-3 days of Thanksgiving and PRAY it lasts so I don't have to do anything other than touch up as necessary - CHECK
2. Get kids out of the house and find an entire day to prep food - CHECK
3. Plan menu - CHECK
4. Food shop - haven't managed to do that yet. Do grocery stores actually run out of turkey??? Let's hope not. At this point I need to get a fresh turkey as I'm officially out of time to defrost a 20lb bird + have 24 hours to brine it first, which is a must as far as I'm concerned.
5. Figure out how to work around my oven temperature being off by 35-45 degrees. Yes, I'm hosting Thanksgiving and my oven is off. I put a thermometer in there and tried it out with the meatloaf I made on Saturday. I think I have the hang of getting it to temperature with the right adjustments as it goes. I can't get a service call for it though as the computer in it broke maybe a week after the 1-yr warranty ran out and my dad helped us pack the back of it with styrofoam to hold the temp gauge up. It is officially jerry-rigged and I'm pretty sure I'd get in trouble or be lectured about the fire hazard were I to get someone out to fix it. Fingers crossed that I don't cause a salmonella outbreak in Joes family - CHECK.
6. Plan Prep Schedule & Thanksgiving day Schedule - tonight hopefully???

So much on my mind/plate right now...my family does Xmas/Hannukkah celebrations the 1st weekend in December. Yes, we were in NJ last weekend, hosting Thanksgiving this weekend, back to NJ next weekend. Thank GOD I did the bulk of my holiday kid shopping yesterday. My friend and I did our annual pre-Thanksgiving-before-it-gets-insane-lets-finish shopping trip to Toys R Us and the mall. I'm in pretty good shape now which is good b/c Hannukkah is the week after we get back from the NJ trip. I need to come up with a good "small thing for everyone" gift since the adults don't exchange gifts. I'd rather not go to the default wine give, but at this point I don't have much time to come up with something more creative. I always intend to though.

Also on my mind...

• Holiday outfits, pictures, & Cards
• Making the annual Kids calendar to give to the family (won't be done for the family weekend so looks like I'm mailing them out now too).
• Figuring out what the hell to get for my mother in law???? we struggle with coming up with something every year. Usually it's an xmas eve call, but I'd prefer to be slightly prepared this year

Sigh...