I believe in saving time when and where you can. But with Thanksgiving?

What's wrong with making lots of complicated time-consuming sides, one time a year? That's the fun of the whole day. I never make corn casserole, or oyster stuffing, or weird hors'doeuvres but on Thanksgiving Day.

Rather than cutting all these corners and so on, instead just prepare your meal well in advance. Get things like casseroles done and in the pan the day before. Do a lot of the chopping and cutting of things like vegetables the day before and put them in ziplock bags. Set out all your pots and pans and plan things well.

Then, the actual day of cooking is a lot of fun and not stressful.

I can't resist adding my favorite minimal refreshing cranberry relish.

In a food processor with metal blade place a bag of fresh cranberries, 2 oranges quartered with skin on and with a splash of orange juice.Pulse till coarsely ground, adding a cup or more of fine white sugar to taste and a half cup of cointreau. Place in a covered container and refrigerator overnight. It's a refreshing tart contrast to all the sugar and butter and the alcohol will soothe the noisy relatives.

Don't peel the oranges, the skin zest provides a lot of taste and it's work. You can pick out the obvious seeds from the oranges, but don't worry if you miss some, the bitterness just adds depth. You will need a lot of sugar and you can adjust the amount of orange juice to get the chopping, but it shouldn't be too liquid.

my son likes cheese balls and shrimp coctail, i like crackers and litle cheese pinwheels from the deli that is pre packaged in little alumium foil wedges.i also like fondue type cheese and br3ead that is dipped and also cholate fondue to dip strawberries, bananbas and of course coconut balls just take some coconut add milk and roll into balls and then dip

That sounds excellent Nick. It's very close to my mother's. She takes fresh whole cranberries, sugar, good brandy and a splash of OJ and bakes them for like an hour until they burst a bit. Both tart and sweet like yours and cuts the heaviness nicely.

Have a great Thanksgiving Day!

Sounds awesome. My mom used to be a real party hostess in the '70s when fondue was all the rage. I'm glad it's back now. I've been to only one party since it's been reintroduced over the last few days.

Enjoy yourself!