I love the holidays! I love decorating the house, lighting up my seasonally scented candles and planning big get togethers with friends and family. Its no secret that I love to cook, but planning a big meal for a big group can easily become overwhelming if you don’t plan ahead.
Here are some of my tips and tricks for planning ahead and making your big holiday meals as easy, relaxing and successful as possible, so you can enjoy all of your hard work as much as your friends and family will.
Choose Your Battles
Trust me, I am all for as many scratch made dishes on the table as possible, but if you are planning a big dinner spread, somethings are not worth the stress. Depending on what kind of meal you are planning, incorporating certain store bought elements can really help things along.
If you are cooking an elaborate meal, pick up a loaf of bread from your markets deli, toss it in the oven for 10 minutes to warm it up and serve it with pride.
If your oven is going to be full of turkey, stuffing and rolls, then grab a Keebler graham cracker crust, add a simple no-bake filling and chill it until your guests arrive.
Creating a balance between elements that require your full effort and things that are going to make your life easier is an important element of pulling off a successful holiday get together!
Doing things that will make life easier is always worth it.
Make Your Lists
I freely admit to being an obsessive list maker, but when things start moving, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to forget something very important. This is why I write everything down, in advance, while I am still relaxed and clear headed.
I usually make three lists:
- A grocery list for everything I will need to make my meal, desserts, drinks and snacks.
- A to-do list around the house, such as clean the guest bathroom, make sure my dinnerware and silverware are clean and gather any decorations I want out or on the table.
- A table list of the number of guests, the dishes I want to serve on the table and the plates, bowls, glasses and silverware I want set up for each guest.
These lists may seem like a lot, but all of this information is needed and when you don’t figure it out ahead of time, it can become super stressful later on. Figure out the number of plates you’ll need 10 minutes before the doorbell starts ringing or where your roast beef platter is hiding as your guests are taking their seat is stress that you do not need and that can be easily avoided by writing these things down and figuring all of this out before hand.
Create A Schedule
Now that you know everything you need, you’ll need to figure out when you need to get it done. This is my favorite part of preparing in advance, because so many things can be done ahead of time making the list of things you need to do right before the big event smaller and smaller aka less stress.
Depending on the meal you are serving, many side dishes, sauces and desserts can be the day before or even two days in advance. For example, on Thanksgiving I made my pies, turkey gravy and sweet potato soufflé two days out. Pies like pumpkin pie, pecan pie or this chocolate mocha cream pie store very well for a few days and having your desserts done in advance feels really good!
Many side dishes can be made or at least prepped in advance as well. Classics like sweet potato soufflé, cranberry sauce and pasta salad will keep well in the refrigerator for a few days, so they are also easy to get ready before the big day.
I find it best to make two schedules…
- A daily schedule listing what recipes or tasks need to be done in the days leading up to the party and on the day of the party.
- An hourly schedule planning when things need to be prepped by, put in the oven by and plated by.
I like to work backwards when I am making my hourly list. For example, if dinner is at 6pm….
-6:00pm – dinner
-5:30pm – turkey needs to be out of the oven and resting
-3:00pm – the turkey will take 2 1/2 hours to roast, so it should go into the oven by 3pm
-2:45pm – preheat the oven
-2:00pm – take the turkey out of the refrigerator so it can come to room temperature
This is how I do it, but you can do it in the way that best makes sense to you, as long as you know what needs to be done and when, so you don’t find yourself figuring those things out in the final minutes of the day.
Plan For The After Party
Once dinner is done, you are going to have an influx of dirty dishes, silverware and serving trays, so plan for where these things are going to go. You can take care of them later, but knowing where they are going to chill while the party continues on is an important part of avoiding stress.
If you have a nice big dish washer, make sure that it is empty and you can quickly stack dishes here when dinner is done. If you do not have a dish washer, be sure that your sink is empty or dedicate an empty area on your counter top to stack these items for now.
Another important part of the after party is dessert! Since you already made dessert a few days ago, there is no stress there, but having a stack of dessert plates, clean forks or spoons and a scoop or spatula ready to serve the dessert will help make this step run smooth and stress free.
How often have you found yourself scrambling to find clean silverware for dessert after clearing everyones dinner plates off of the table? Everyone has been there, but planning ahead for this moment can help you avoid a stressful moment.
It just wouldn’t be the holidays without some stress, but these are a few of the things that I do to try to keep things running smoothly as possible. I hope they help you pull off some fabulous holiday, birthday or “just because” parties in the future!
Cheers!
