Thanksgiving can be a great time with friends and family. However, with any Holiday there is an added layer of stress. Here are a few tips from our team at Corken + Company on how to make this year’s Thanksgiving the most stress free and enjoyable!
Get Your Groceries Delivered:
For reasons that are now unclear to me, I was a strong holdout on grocery delivery. Then, after a particularly stressful week, I finally caved and tried Instacart. I loved it so much that I’m now an Express member. If you’re hosting the Thanksgiving meal, you’re going to have to make quite a few runs to the grocery store. You’ll save time (and possibly even money) by outsourcing some of those trips to a grocery delivery platform like Instacart.
Outsource the cooking or food prep: You can cut down on even more stress by leaving the cooking to the pros; lots of restaurants are offering fully prepared or take-and-bake meals. Local restaurants have been hit hard by the pandemic, and outsourcing your holiday meal to them is a great way to show your support.
Expand the Cooking Outside the Kitchen:
For many cooks, the huddle of guests in the kitchen while you’re trying to prepare a meal is overwhelming even in the best of years, let alone with coronavirus still a threat. To avoid the kitchen clog, encourage guests to bring fully heated, ready-to-eat dishes and make it clear that reheating might not be an option. If your guests simply must bring something that needs to be cooked last minute, encourage them to think of dishes that can be prepared outside of the kitchen.
Embrace Disposables and Single-Serving Packaging:
While disposable plates, bowls, flatware, napkins, serveware, and drinkware certainly make cleanup easier, they also help keep things sanitary by eliminating cross-contact. Hefty and Dixie both make solidly built disposables, but there are also plenty of eco-friendly, compostable brands out there if you’re concerned about the environmental effects of using disposables. There are also a number of disposable products that look like real dinnerware or flatware, if you can’t imagine parting with a meticulously set dinner table.
Offer Sanitation Stations:
Let’s face it: it can still feel uncomfortable to be in close spaces with a group right now. Set up a few sanitation stations with hand sanitizer near entrances, exits, and bathrooms (in addition to soap) to encourage guests to wash their hands. Our guide to the best hand sanitizers has recommendations for products that are effective, smell good, and are easy on your skin.
Plan Something Fun:
Take the stress off small talk by offering an activity or game. The after-dinner board game is a tradition in my house, and there are plenty of games that can still be played from 6 feet across the table. Heads Up! is always a favorite, as are classic games like Charades or “Who Am I?” Lawn games are also a great way to keep warm and have fun from a distance; some good ones include cornhole, ladder toss, Spikeball, or bocce.
Find more tips to de-stress your thanksgiving at: businessinsider.com
