Thanksgiving: A play-by-play plan

On Tuesday, I took the bird out of the refrigerator along with packages of cranberries, celery, and other fixings.

It's Thanksgiving week and time to start cooking.

I placed a pot with sugar and water on the stove to boil. Cranberries are dumped in. The berries pop as they boil. The cranberry sauce, complete, is poured into covered containers, cooled and put back in the 'fridge.

The pumpkin is peeled, cut into chunks, and cooked - ready to become pie filling.

Half a loaf of bread is also cubed and set out to dry.

On Wednesday, it's time to make the pie crust.

The pumpkin is mixed with milk, eggs and spice, poured into the pie shell and put in the oven to bake until a knife blade dipped into it comes out clean. Any extra filling goes into a Pyrex dish for a pre-turkey day sample. Spicy odors fill the house and make mouths water.

By Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, cooking will become the order of the day. The turkey must be is taken from the 'fridge and thoroughly washed.

Giblets are set to cook in water with a potato while we have breakfast.

Onion, garlic, celery, potato and giblets are chopped and combined with the bread cubes, salt, pepper, sage, marjoram and any other desired herbs are added and mixed in.

Moisture from the giblet pan is added as needed to make a moist but not soggy dressing. Stuff the dressing into both the body cavity and neck cavity, but not too tight or it'll split the bird.

Secure the openings in the bird with skewers. Put the stuffed bird in a roasting pan and place into a pre-heated 325-degree to 350-degree oven until the inside temperature of the meat reaches 180 degrees.

While the turkey cooks, it is time to prepare the yams, stuff celery, make Waldorf salad plus any other desired side dishes. Everything must be ready when the turkey comes out of the oven.

Finally, the table is ready and so are we.

"Thank you Lord for a wonderful meal, topped off with pie - Oh, My!"

Now, we're stuffed.