Originally Posted by
sewingpup
sighhhh! I would love to have just a pizza. So my holidays were basically spent baking, cooking, cleaning, and dishwashing. The burner was when the rest of the family retired to the living room just leaving a few of us to clean up the kitchen. My happy memories of family get togethers was when we just roasted hotdogs over a fire and had some-mores for dessert!
I one-thousand-percent get this! My husband always loved to have huge gatherings (not just holidays) with lots of food that was very time-consuming to produce. I would try to use shortcuts or pre-made stuff, which always made him grumble. It was like he wanted to show off what a good cook I am, but he never put any skin in the game, so to speak. Finally a few years ago, I broke down, told him I was absolutely dreading the holidays, and could we please go out of town or go somewhere else to celebrate. He asked why. I said because I spend all my time in the kitchen, prepping and cooking and cleaning, and I never get to visit with my family and friends. It's NOT FUN. Sob, sniff, cry cry cry. He asked how he could help (FINALLY). I said first of all, when I ask you for help, get up and actually HELP. Second of all, take over some of these cooking chores. If you want to show off our cooking prowess, YOU do some of the cooking! So now he is in charge of the turkey - he smokes it. This leaves me with a lot more time, energy, and space in the kitchen for the other dishes.
I actually have a spreadsheet. I list each item, who is bringing/making it, and if *I'm* making it, where it's being cooked (oven, toaster oven, Instant Pot, or crock pot) and which day I'm cooking it. (Wednesday is pies, cranberry-orange relish, and assembling the green bean casserole. Thursday is mashed taters, gravy, fruit salad, etc.) I also use an app called Paprika to plan the menu and grocery shop. I have all my holiday recipes in the app. It's one click to move them to a menu for that day, another click to look at all the ingredients for each recipe. I go through the kitchen and uncheck the ingredients I already have (salt, flour, etc.), whatever is left gets added to the grocery list in the app. It syncs to my phone, so I have both my grocery list and the menu with me at the store. As I put each item in my cart, the list shrinks, and so does my stress level. I wish I'd been able to do this 30 years ago, I'd have a lot more happy memories of holidays.