The nation’s biggest meal is upon us! If you are playing host(ess) this Thanksgiving, I’m delighted to share this 2-week dinner prep timeline to help you manage your time and stress leading up to the holiday. No one wants to be frazzled and rushed on Thanksgiving Day! As the person who is sacrificing their time, their home, their kitchen, their money and their sanity to host such a monumental meal, you deserve to mingle with your guests, have a glass of wine… heck, you even deserve to take some time to sit down and rest!

You’re probably wondering what makes me qualified to share this Thanksgiving dinner prep timeline. As I’m writing this post, I’m preparing to host my 9th Thanksgiving in California. While I’m probably not as experienced as your granny who’s been making Thanksgiving for decades, I feel like I’ve learned all the rights and wrongs of how to prep for the “big feast” over the last 9 years with minimal help. You see, while I host 6-12 family members for Thanksgiving every year, I don’t actually have any family that lives close by to help prepare dinner (all of our relatives live in Texas). Other than my mother lending me a hand in the kitchen the day of Thanksgiving, there’s rarely any other assistance or delegation for the meal. My family is usually staying in hotels, so unless they pick up something from a restaurant or grocery store, no one is bringing appetizers and side dishes to contribute. And, to be honest, that’s okay with me. There’s no old auntie who insists on bringing her infamous green jello salad (thank god), so I have full liberty to craft our family’s Thanksgiving to my liking. Wow, that makes me sound like a control freak, which I promise I’m not — or am I?! No, what its really about is that I’m delighted to GIVE this meal to my family for Thanksgiving. What an honor it is to have so many family members travel thousands of miles to spend Thanksgiving with us. My husband and I are both the babies of our families, and it’s our way to thank our parents and older siblings for everything they’ve done for us over the years and thank them for making the trip to be with us on this holiday.

Below, you’ll find my 2-week Thanksgiving timeline with suggestions for food, drink and table preparations. This is the timeline I follow every year for a nearly seamless Thanksgiving Day where I can actually relax, sit on our balcony and chat with with my family and sip sangria while taking in our home’s beautiful SoCal mountain views.

If you’d like to learn from some of my past Thanksgiving hosting mistakes (or just have a good laugh!) scroll to the bottom of this post where I share three “Turkey Day Dinner Blunders.”

Ultimate Thanksgiving Dinner Prep Timeline:

2 Weeks Before

• Plan out your table – Pull out your serving ware, dishes, table linens and décor you plan to use for Thanksgiving dinner. Make sure you have enough chairs for everyone.
• Take inventory of kitchen tools – Is your food processor still missing that one blade? Do you know where your turkey baster is? Is it time to upgrade your mixer? Now is the time to locate and update your cooking gadgets, especially if you haven’t seen them in a while.
• Plan your dinner and make your shopping list – List everything you plan to serve. Make note of the spices and ingredients you already have on hand and make a list of what you need to purchase.

Weekend Before

• Buy your turkey and non-perishable food products and drinks – If your turkey is frozen, put it in the refrigerator to thaw. Stock up on your canned beans and vegetables, dried seasonings, nuts, seeds and beverages.
• If you’re planning to make casseroles and desserts ahead of time and freeze them, make them now – For less stress on the day of Thanksgiving, desserts, dressing and casseroles, like sweet potato casserole, corn casserole and macaroni and cheese, can often be frozen then reheated in the oven.

3 Days Before

• Shop for perishable food products – This is when you purchase your produce and dairy so it’s fresh for cooking the big meal

Day Before

• Move frozen casseroles and dessert to fridge – If you made and froze your casseroles and dessert ahead of time, this is now the time to start letting them thaw.
• Make remaining casseroles and dressing – If you didn’t already make your casseroles and freeze them, make them now and keep in the refrigerator until one hour before dinner.
• Prep for remaining dishes and sides – Chop vegetables, make yeast rolls recipe to rise overnight, try to do as much as possible to make your holiday easier, and make a list of when everything should go in the oven tomorrow to be ready at the same time.

Thanksgiving Morning

• Take the turkey out of the refrigerator and start prep – Let your turkey sit for 2 hours at room temperature before roasting. Plan on 13 minutes of roasting time for every pound or 15 minutes per pound if stuffed. You can view my Thanksgiving Turkey recipe here.
• Set the table and arrange any centerpieces.
• Get wine chilling and get your cocktail/drink station ready.

3-4 Hours Before Dinner

• Assemble appetizers and remaining side dishes – Get as much completed as possible. You can always reheat dishes the hour before dinner.

2 Hours Before Dinner

• Turn on music – Before guests arrive, set the mood for your party with music. Town & Country created a great Thanksgiving music playlist if you need inspiration.
• Set out appetizers – The focus of the day is Thanksgiving dinner, so don’t stress about this too much. Some simple cheeses, crackers, fancy nuts and a fruit bowl is perfect. I also love the ease of premade snacks from my grocer’s freezer section and premade cheeseboards and dips from the deli section.
• Set out drinks – Have your chilled wine and signature cocktail (if you’re making) easily accessible to guests. If dinner’s late, they won’t care if they have a drink in hand and some simple snacks! My guests have always enjoyed this Thanksgiving Sangria. I also fill a large pitcher with ice water and sliced lemons.
• Let casseroles come to room temperature.

1 Hour Before Dinner

• Take turkey out of oven – You turkey needs to rest 30 minutes to 1 hour before carving.
• Reheat casseroles – Adjust oven temperature to

30 Minutes Before Dinner

• Carve the turkey.
• Assemble salad if making.

15 Minutes Before Dinner

• Set out food – Take everything out of the oven and set on your dinner table or buffet table.
• Light candles if using.

Turkey Day Dinner Blunders

As promised, here are some of the silly mistakes that I’ve made when hosting Thanksgiving. Learn what not to do from my past blunders!

But it ain’t got wing: My first year hosting, I was intimidated to make a turkey, so I bought a premade smoked turkey from a local BBQ joint thinking that my barbecue-loving Texan relatives would get a kick out of it! I ordered a 12 lb. turkey to feed 8 adults. Well, when I went to pick up the turkey on Thanksgiving Day, they gave me a turkey that was 9 lb. because they “ran out” of the larger turkeys. I had no other choice so last minute, so I took the smaller turkey. Not only did we not have enough meat to happily feed everyone, the turkey was missing a wing… so it was ugly! I’m thankful to my mom and sister-in-law for offering to only have a “taste” of turkey that year. Lesson learned: If you’re going to order a premade turkey, make sure its from a reputable seller who guarantees the size of the turkey you ordered! This was my first time ordering from the restaurant and found them on an internet search. There wasn’t many restaurant reviews, so I should have taken it as a sign to order something else from them to test before Thanksgiving or at least be a bit skeptical!

When more is a bore: My second year hosting, our house was being renovated, so we rented a condo in Newport Beach to host everyone. Because I had a 3-month-old baby and wasn’t stoked about cooking a large meal in a kitchen I was unfamiliar with, I ordered a premade Thanksgiving dinner from a local grocery store. I was scarred from not having enough turkey the year before, so I over-ordered. I justified spending the extra money with that we’d be able to eat leftovers for a few days and I wouldn’t have to cook (I was an exhausted first-time mom and business owner at the time!). Not only did we have way too much food — think three 9×13 baking dishes of mashed potatoes — the food was TERRIBLE! The stuffing was so bland. I kept adding butter and seasoning trying to spruce it up. The salad was so boring with only iceburg lettuce, diced tomatoes and mini croutons. The turkey was so dry that I was dipping it in BBQ sauce. It was the saddest waste to dump multiple containers of uneaten food in the trash. We considered trying to donate it, but couldn’t figure out all the logistics in time. Lesson learned: Don’t overdo it on food. Again, if you order premade anything, make sure its reputable with good reviews — it’s even better if a friend who’s tried it recommends it!

Don’t dispose-ALL: One year, I was doing a lot of prep work the day before Thanksgiving. As I was cutting and chopping all of the vegetables that I would use in the stuffing, green bean casserole, and sweet potato casserole, I put all of the veggie waste in our sink’s disposal. I grew up in a house where we put everything in the disposal (banana peels, rotten bunches of lettuce, egg shells… seriously, everything!) in an effort to not stink up the trash, and I didn’t realize that this is not normal behavior until I started living with someone else. Sure enough, I clogged our sink, and boy did it STINK! Every time I turned on the disposal, smelly toxic green-brown sludge came spewing from the drain! It took us the evening and half of Thanksgiving Day to fix, so I was so delayed in prepping my meal without access to the kitchen sink. Needless to say, my Mr. Fix-It (A.K.A. my husband) was not very pleased. And, I hated feeling rushed to make all our dinner the day of Thanksgiving. Lesson learned: Not everything needs to go in the disposal. Also, have a handyman on-call who can come help fix any last-minute house repairs before guests arrive. It seems something in our house always breaks right before we host guests!

Now that I’m looking back, these Thanksgiving mishaps are hilarious! And, I realize that this is what Thanksgiving is about… It’s about the effort. It’s about wanting to create a meal that’s meaningful for your family. It’s not going to be perfect, but you’re going to learn a lot. I also believe that hosting Thanksgiving and the mistakes that can come with it is almost like a rite of passage. I watched my mother host Thanksgiving so many times, and while most of my memories are of how it appeared as though she effortlessly perfected an elaborate meal, I also remember her burning rolls, undercooking the turkey, forgetting to thaw the dessert and other funny little blunders. If you’re not able to execute your perfect Thanksgiving meal as you envisioned, brush it off. From my Thanksgiving missteps examples, I hope you can rest easy knowing you’re not the only one. And, you have 365 to try again (haha!).

Please let me know if this timeline is helpful and if you have any questions in the comments below. Connect with me on Instagram and TikTok for easy recipes, party ideas and tips to simplify your life!

XO Maggie