My Favorite Cooking Day of the Year!



Sweet Potato Pie, the most popular recipe on this blog.  Yup, I'll be making some for Thanksgiving, as usual.

Thanksgiving always comes at the end of a very busy time at work for our household.  Both of us have jobs that are hectic during the fall and we welcome the peace and return to sanity in our professional lives between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We're always really happy and excited to spend a long weekend with friends and family eating all types of food that we only get to enjoy once a year.  When possible, I take off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving so I can have a full day to fill the house with the smells of freshly baked goods.  On Thanksgiving morning we'll be making some dishes that are best served the same day (macaroni and cheese and yeast rolls), loading up the car, and enjoying dinner in Philly with the family.  This year will be the 10th Thanksgiving Day I've spent with my husband's family.  I still can't believe we've been together this long... we go way back!

I'm not in charge of the big meal for Thanksgiving, but if you are in need of some holiday cooking assistance, my favorite grocery store in the world is hosting their third annual Chefs On Call program for Thanksgiving.  You can reach a ShopRite chef at 1-800-SHOPRITE to get assistance with your holiday cooking drama.  Read more about it here.

On to the next major holiday...

Although I said I wasn't going to go "all out" for Christmas, we've already started decorating.  Last year we hosted Christmas at our home and while it was fun I was quite stressed and I wanted to be a bit more low key in 2010.  In spite of my reluctance to let things get "out of hand" (too many gifts, too many parties, etc.) we've decided to go ahead and put the decorations up before Thanksgiving.  We have a small home and the Christmas stuff looks much better decking our halls than it does stacked up in the basement.  Plus, it makes me smile.

The living room bookshelf... I picked up these holiday letter blocks and battery operated candles at Costco last month.

Our circa 1987 artificial Christmas tree.  This thing has traveled with our family from New Jersey to three houses in Delaware... decorations coming soon.

Happy Thanksgiving!  Do you have any special plans for this holiday?  Does anyone else bookmark tons of recipes and dream about menu planning?  How about those Black Friday sales?

I'm off do do my pre-Thanksgiving loop of Costco, Target, and ShopRite.  Yes, I've already hit up those stores at least two times this week, but there's always something last minute... you know how it is!