Welcome to Personal Development for Men Issue #40

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Thanksgiving

Make It Better For You

But not for me. I will be going to my parent's house for the day. They live 100 miles away. So it is less than a 2 hour drive. The kids and I will leave mid morning, spend the day and head back in the evening. It will be a nice, relaxing, good eating, nice time day. I have enjoyed these last 5 or 6 years of Thanksgiving with my family.

I am so happy that it is this way.

If you are hosting the Thanksgiving meal you will need to kick it into overdrive right now. Read my tips here:

1) Know how many people are coming. Get a count, including kids, as close as you can. Sometimes your guests will not know exactly their plans and the number. You will have to build iin contingency plans for extra people in that case. These plans would include extra food and places to eat. Get out paper and a pen. Write down all their names and if they eat a lot. I am not kidding, just doing this will help. You do not want to try to remember all this. Using your head instead of paper and pen is where so many people go so wrong and get so stressed. Get organized for Thanksgiving will be 100% easier with paper and pen.

2) Calculate how much food to prepare. Preparing too much food is almost as bad as too little. The problem with too much is that it is hard to store beforehand, hard to prepare properly, hard to distribute to your guests and hard to deal with after wards with all the leftovers. As you can see, I think it is hard. Again, use you paper and pen and make plans on the paper. Trying to do all this in your head is a recipe for disaster.

3) A better way to think of the main meal is that each person will have one normal size helping, rather than 3 helpings, if you have snacks and a desert. If you are not having snacks then you would probably want to plan on 2 servings for each adult guest and each older child.

4) Shop for the items you need now. Why wait until a few days before Thanksgiving for canned goods and easily stored items. The only thing you should need to buy a few days before Thanksgiving are the turkey and refrigerator items. You know by now how much food and the types. Go to the store now. A lot of the holiday food is at a low price. Get it now.

5) Bake your pie a day or two before. Do as much preparation as you can as many days ahead as you can. Some types of food do not freeze well, so I know that there is still going to be a ton of cooking the day of the meal. At least doing your planning and other things will help you for an organized for Thanksgiving holiday.

6) Clean your house thoroughly now. Dust now. Vacuum now. Clean your bathrooms now. You would only want to do some spot cleaning the last day before your guests arrive.

7) After your house is cleaned, put up your Thanksgiving type decorations. I am not much for decorating, but it seems to me that a little decorating goes a long way toward making it special and creating the mood for a great holiday.

8) Take care of your normal chores now and faster. Take care of you outdoor door quickly and be done with it. You may want to let a lot of the things slide that do not matter so much.

9) Create a holiday ritual that is fun and interesting for your kids that helps you and brings you together. They will remember it for years and may want to do it themselves as adults. This could be baking the pumpkin pie with them, or setting out the decorations, or shopping for the canned goods. All these things need to be done, and you children can help. Creating a ritual does take time, but it is so worth it and it will make your future holidays even better and more memorable. Getting organized for Thanksgiving also means to make it special for you and your loved ones.

10) Limit the other extra things you do at this time of year so you have more time to concentrate on your holiday gathering. You can easily not watch TV until Thanksgiving is over.

It is Better to Go Somewhere

If you are going somewhere for Thanksgiving, good for you, that is a lot easier, although traveling at this time of the year is busy, hectic and if you are in a northern climate, potentially a weather hazard.

If you are smart you are just going somewhere to enjoy the day. What I do is just pitch in with the cleanup after the meal is over. This helps to work off a little of the heavy eating as well as doing what I can to help.

I hate to talk about your bad marriage at this time of the year but You deserve to be happy too. If you are struggling with your marriage, check out my book - How to Leave Your Wife You deserve to have the happy, relaxed holidays that I have been having free from the criticism and hard times from my wife. A bad marriage will just take all the fun out of the holidays for you.

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