Preparing For My First Thanksgiving

This year I am hosting my first Thanksgiving. Before this, my cousin Holly who is an awesome individual and an amazing host, has officially retired from her near 2-decade span of hosting. As the day grew closer, I began thinking about what to serve and how to serve it. I figured I could go the traditional comfort route and roast a 20-pounder with standard stuffing, mashed skin-on red potatoes, veggies, canned cranberry sauce, and my mom's pumpkin pie. Sounds safe, but I'm not happy with "safe". If you know me, you know I like to modify and put my own spin on things. I love getting creative and being resourceful, and for the past year now, I also eat healthy and love to promote health. So what I've decided to do is skin and rub down one 12 pounder to be smoked for 6 hours or so, and I'm going to butterfly another turkey and roast it over whole-grain panzanella, which will serve as a stuffing. I'm making the roasted reds as usual but using olive oil and no butter. We've decided to also serve a fresh salad with our own balsamic vinaigrette, whole wheat rolls, cornbread, steamed broccoli florets and organic carrots, homemade fresh cranberry and pomegranate sauce, and I'm going to make a low-glycemic-sweetened whole wheat pumpkin bread with low-fat pomegranate blueberry fro-yo as an alternate dessert. I didn't mention that we're serving homemade hummus and guacamole with multi-grain pita chips, carrots, and celery, and also shrimp cocktail for appetizers. I picked up MGD 64, and I plan to make some cocktails including pomegranate martinis, cosmos, and V-8 bloody marys. So we're gonna make this a good one, and I have to say that this weekend's shopping experience has been an interesting one, but as long as we prepare well, this will be a great Thanksgiving debut for us! Maybe this will give you some ideas on how to make your Thanksgiving meal a little healthier, otherwise I'm sure it will be great anyways. Let's face it-it's a holiday so enjoy yourself! Thanks for reading and have a great night!