Friends, Family, and Out of Town Relatives, Oh My

Have you ever looked forward to something and dreaded it happening at the same time?  That's my current dilemma.  I'm having friends, family, and out of town relatives for dinner on Thanksgiving.  Now, I'm not saying that's what I'm dreading.  That's the part I'm looking forward to.

The part I'm dreading is all the prep work for the meal. I have three days to get pies, sweet rolls, and bread rolls made and as many items as I can prepped beforehand for the holiday meal so that I'm not spending the entire day in the kitchen cooking, just a portion of it. 

Thankfully, my mother will help with the baking part.  While I'm slaving away at the day job Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, she'll be making the pie crusts (hers are so much better than mine) and taking care of the bread rolls which take an enormous amount of time between the inital rising, the shaping of the dough into clovers, and then the second rising before they can be baked.  She's also going to be making the bread we'll use to make the stuffing.  Another time consuming process. 

I suppose I could make the holiday less stressful by buying the pies, or the rolls, or making the potatoes and stuffing from a box or bag, but for every holiday that I can remember, my mother always made everything from scratch, nothing from a box, bag, can, or frozen item.  Actually, that's how she taught me to cook everything.  I didn't have a store bought cookie like Chips Ahoy until I was a teenager.  So the thought of opening a can and dumping it in a pan, buying the rolls or the pies just doesn't seem right. 

Thanksgiving is about tradition.  I guess one of the traditions in our house is stressing about getting all that cooking done well and on time.  And we always do, every year.