Rethinking Thanksgiving

It seems that every year, the holidays sneak up on me. For some reason, my brain doesn't realize that Thanksgiving is less than one month after Halloween, or that Christmas is about a month after that. Instead, I find myself amazed when I'm making plans a week or two out and see that my calendar hasn't forgotten about Thanksgiving at all.

This year, I'm even more worried about how quickly the holidays snuck up on me because, for the first time ever, I plan on hosting Thanksgiving dinner. It was one of those things that just made sense: I didn't want to go to my parents' for the holiday, it's one of my roommates' last Thanksgiving in New York, I have a lovely apartment, my best friend has lofty dinner goals and her mother will be in town, I love baking and my best friend loves cooking, etc. It all sounded so perfect...

Now I'm feeling like this was the worst idea ever. Friends I thought would be around might not be. My roommate might actually go to somebody else's dinner. No menu has been set. My kitchen is not yet ready for any large-scale cooking (I don't even know where we keep the glasses). What on earth was I thinking?! With my luck, this will end up being one of those terrible Thanksgivings people look back on and laugh at in a sitcom flashback episode.

Of course, I have saner moments sprinkled in between all that panic. So what if nobody shows up? And who really cares if some of the food is terrible? Even if it's just me and a few slices of pizza enjoying the 500th showing of The Wizard of Oz this month, I'm sure I'll still love the night.

How did you prepare for the first Thanksgiving you hosted? Did things turn out better or worse than expected?