My wonderful Thanksgiving and how we made it work
So, I rented a big house for a week and filled it with our 4 kids, their SO's, a couple of inlaws, my mother and various friends.
Before everyone arrived I made a big chart with breakfast and dinner each day. I further broke down each meal to cooking and cleaning. Each meal (except Thursday dinner) had two cooks and two cleaner uppers.
Each guest had a certain number of stickies. The number they had depended on their length of stay. Those there the longest had 4. Others had just one.
As each guest arrived, they were told to put their stickies on the board - signing up for either cooking or cleaning up certain meals.
The crew for each meal was responsible for securing the supplies, preparing, serving and cleaning it up. They were also responsible for drinks.
The stickies allowed easy changes and deals to be made. One of the beauties was that if you weren't on duty, you could just relax and not feel guilty about it.
Despite being given a lot of grief and teasing early on, the system was beautiful and worked flawlessly.
And we had fantastic meals for up to 18 people at a sitting.
Breakfasts:
Crepes
Bagels
Bacon/Eggs
Turkey Hash
Smoothies
Yogurt Parfaits
Beignets
Dinners:
Shepherds Pie
Quesadillas
Gumbo
Turkey Sandwiches
Ribs
Leftovers
Everyone is gone now, and as spectacular as the week was, the quiet of home is most welcome.
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LOL. I bet you got some ribbing, but sounds like it worked. Good looking meals all around.
Was there much wheeling and dealing on slots? I could see trades being made as a bit of fun.
My family get-together meals are often a case of low level chaos. We're all sharing a house in Nor Cal in February (my niece is getting married). I might suggest allocating main meals to a couple of us each day to see how it flies...I know I'd volunteer to team up with my other niece who'll be there. She's a chef, so knows how to run a kitchen and I'm fine with "chop these fine, turn the mushrooms, taste the sauce to see if it's OK, did we uncork the wine?" etc.
Lots of eating, game playing, story telling, walks, exploring and even one sail.
The trading was great and was often hilarious. And no one felt that anyone else hadn't done their share. Often others would pitch in when not assigned, just because they wanted to.
Most meals did have a main chef and a sous chef, which also worked out great.
We left lunches to individuals - go out or eat leftovers. And the general rule was that if it was in the kitchen, it belonged to everyone (unless marked as needed for a specific meal).
For the Thanksgiving meal, we put up one big board and people wrote what they were going to bring or cook. So you could look at the list and see what was needed. Those that chose not to cook were assigned to clean-up and this also worked really, really well, as we had some non-cooks.
Hope you try it out. It was the best thing I did to prepare for this family reunion.
In the past, there were a few "moms" who did pretty much everything. And we also felt guilty if there was a meal where we did nothing.
I can not tell you how great it was to sit back and be served by the "dads" and kids. And they took great pride in their meals.
Overall, a tremendous success!
You're a wonderful organizer and delegator (my personal failing) as well as a terrific chef. Sounds like a lot of fun and good company! Welcome back!
And it ended up being loads of fun - kind of like an ongoing party game.
The difficulty was getting the numbers to match. The number of stickies had to match the number or chores. It took me several hours, but the magic number ended up being 44!
Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, yeller pup.
I made bits of our meal ahead, so I only had to roast the duck. Just the two of us. We saw "Lincoln" on Sunday. Daniel Day-Lewis owns his roles. The theater was packed with seniors. All seats taken! We love party games and I can see how your weekend would seem like one (done right, which you evidently did up to a tee) long party game. What a great vibe you created. This will be a Thanksgiving your guests will never forget.
All four kids together is an amazing treat.
And then there was my 82 year old mother - the matriarch - to oversee everything.
I would do it every year if I could, but alas the cost is prohibitive.
it sounds like such a wonderful time.
I was holding my breath there at the beginning.
I'm happy that everything worked out well and that you had such a great time.
How was your Thanksgiving? Sounds like you got some tasty leftovers!
I left the leftovers with my niece. With three kids nearing the teens (!!!) -- and two of them boys -- I figured that they'd eat it up very quickly.
Thanksgiving was very good. I spent the rest of the weekend quietly as I am fighting off a cold. Since I just had one in October, I really don't want another right now.
