First Step -- invite hundreds of people to dinner

My first blog - yay! Where to start . . . . . well, as long as I avoid overwhelmed-despair this early in the planning I should be fine. Overwhelmed-Despair right now is like the light people see when their time is up. (Donkey to Shrek: "Do NOT look at the light!" ) So much better that the O-D feelings should hit 15 minutes before the guests arrive. There are 82 days until The Turkey needs to be sliced & diced, but I have already sent out the invitations. Two of them in fact. Facebook is great for these sorts of things, but it seems to give a feeling of being a 'semi' invite. As though it weren't personally extended, so the RSVP doesn't really count. So the 2nd invitation went out via email, and had a much bigger reaction than I could have anticipated! I am guessing, but I think word got around about last year's groaning table, and people are keen to see just how much Turkey they can eat in one session. We should have a separate Turkey just for the boys. They can see how much they can eat in half an hour. If they manage to keep it all down, then they get an entire pie of their choosing. MMMMMM -- just what they'll feel like! I have found last year's Turkey Timeline - phew! The TT is an excel document with several tabs. It is my Thanksgiving-Blankie: I don't do well without it, and verge on meltdown if we become separated. The first tab is a list of all the menu items. The second tab is a list of ingredients I need to purchase to prepare said menu. The third tab is a menu preparation action plan. Starting on the Wednesday before (Vanilla ice-cream, candied pecans, praline), through to the day itself (with a clock countdown of what I need to do, e.g. 2.30pm, make scone mix & refrigerate. 3.00pm Nap!!). It also has all of the recipe's I am using photocopied & attached to the back of it. Now that I have the guest spreadsheet up and running (Name; Yes; Maybe; No; Extras), time to update the TTv.'08 and get TTv.09 up and running. First: what type of Turkey this year? A.x