A Day Early

So today I managed to complete my Thanksgiving shopping. A whole day earlier than I usually manage to get it done. Though I forgot the pies, so I'll still have to head out tomorrow to get pie.

Why don't I, who love to bake, make my own pies, you ask? Because the extended family gripes about my pies and prefers store bought ones. It's the same reason that I don't bother making fancy dressing/stuffing from scratch anymore either. Everyone prefers StoveTop. I try to save my efforts for things that are appreciated and worthwhile.

This year, we're even buying a smoked turkey (mostly because we wanted to try it and our grill's been out of commission for going on two years now so doing it ourselves was out of the question.)

I'm hoping that means Thanksgiving proper will be a low stress for me on the cooking front. The rest of the day, well, stress-free isn't likely.