LOL. I love your second rule.

I would add, if you are roasting using the actual high heat method of 500°F DO NOT USE THE CONVECTION SETTING.

Ann

Do not open the oven door and remark "what a big bird" when a 3 year old Sesame Street fan is within earshot. This necessitated a 20 minute assurance to a hysterical child that we were not eating "Big Bird".

Annie

Make sure your Great Dane is restricted from the kitchen while eating dinner or you will have no leftovers. Lucy loved that prime rib from Christmas dinner!!

David

David, was going to say exactly the same thing about Labs!

Also make sure the oven is not set on auto start......

Don't forget to thaw the darn thing before morning of--

Turn the oven ON--don't wait until you realize there's no enticing smell wafing thru the house.

Diane

Don't let your cat be the first to taste the gravy while its still in the roaster pan bubbling away on the stove but if it happens anyway, don't tell anybody.

Make sure you have a decent oven that doesn't die after about 45 minutes of cooking the turkey.

And if you don't...make sure you haven't invited your mother-in-law.

And if you have invited her, make sure you have enough of her beloved freakin' turnips to make up for the lack of turkey.

And if you do, figure out whatever it is you put in the turnips that makes her burp loudly and so rudely in your ear and LEAVE IT OUT!!!!

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

Oh Lori. Thanks for the laugh. Have you invited your MIL this year?

Ann

LOL I'm off the hook!!!

Actually, we alternate Thanksgiving with my family and Bob's. This year it's at my sister's and I get to make the desserts. I love my sister dearly, but cooking is not her expertise.

She's pregnant and I offered to cook (there are 29 of us!!!) but she's even more stubborn than I am and wants to do it. So she asked me to do the desserts. Then she asked my other sister to make the stuffing because it's the best. Then asked my brother's wife to do the mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.

THEN, she called and asked if I'd do a ham.

So, no, I'm not cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year...allegedly! ;)

But as far as my MIL....I still have to deal with her on Christmas Eve!!! LOL

Don't let the gravy maker have a mixed drink sitting next to glass of water for thinning the gravy ...... of course, we know the alcohol burns off, but my mother was reminded every year of the time she tried to get us all drunk on the gravy!

Yes - a teenage SIL who was helping out when her Mom was ill left both the neck and giblets in the body cavities. Her Pop was less than kind when he discovered her faux pas!

grinning at the memories......

Vicki

Under no circumstances (even though there is no counter space left to be found anywhere!) sit your pan of already mashed potatoes down in one side of the sink. Some man might come along and WASH HIS HANDS over the pan and it would be a no mashed potatoes Thanksgiving.

Yep. And to make it even worse, that year's gravy turned out perfect and no potatoes.