By now you will have (hopefully) finalized your menu and assigned all of the dishes that you don't want to cook to others...That is mean of me. There are also family tradition dishes which only taste good if made by the person who made them when you were little.
The most important thing now is to determine your budget for the turkey if you haven't already - pasture-raised, antibiotic free, free range, grain-fed, Butterball with the pop-up thermometer - it is up to you.
And once you have determined that, put together an EXHAUSTIVE grocery list and go shopping this weekend for anything that you can purchase in advance (which is pretty much everything but the salad greens). There is nothing more annoying that frantically cooking for 20 and realizing that you haven't used your dried sage since last year and you didn't buy any because you thought it was fine. By exhaustive, I mean obsessively checked and rechecked against recipes and pantry stock.
Or be like me, order everything online early in November, and have it delivered first thing Tuesday morning so that you can get cooking then and avoid crowds of cranky soon-to-be-cooks. That last sentence sounds smug but I really mean it as wise and obvious advice so that you, the cook, can enjoy Thanksgiving as well.
This handy calculator can also help as you plan, in terms of serving sizes. Personally, the more leftovers there are the happier I am but if you want to get your servings exactly right, there you go!
While our table may be groaning on Thursday, please take a minute to remember how many people in our nation are going hungry and donate to Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry Initiative. $50 can provide 500 meals for kids who face hunger.