11 Expert Tips for Hosting Holiday Dinners Like a Pro

Hosting a holiday meal—Thanksgiving especially—is almost inescapably hectic. On top of orchestrating a multi-course feast for friends and family who hold comically strong feelings about every dish (see: canned vs. homemade cranberry sauce), you also need to keep a house full of guests entertained as you tend to the bird, gravy, and fixings—all while shooing everyone out of the kitchen.

After all the effort you put into the meal, you should get to slow down and enjoy it, too. To find out how, exactly, one can stay calm in the eye of a feast’s storm, I asked a few experts who spend their professional lives hosting and catering events. Here’s how they set themselves up for success and minimal stress while entertaining.

1. Organize Your Fridge

Julia Sherman, the L.A.-based author of Arty Parties: An Entertaining Cookbook, is a seasoned host who throws dinner parties on behalf of brands like Maille. She often entertains at home, too, where she organizes her fridge according to her menu.

“I clear off one shelf in the fridge where everything for that meal goes, because otherwise, you always forget something.” Even if it takes multiple shelves, the idea is to create a dedicated place for everything you plan to serve. Otherwise, the fresh chives meant to garnish your potatoes or the maple dressing for your roasted Brussels sprouts might be forgotten if they’re scattered throughout the fridge.

2. Prep and Cook Days in Advance

Getting your dishes as close as possible to their complete state before guests arrive is a well-known piece of hosting advice that Julia follows. “I try to get things 90 percent of the way there. Once I'm talking, I can’t make decisions.”

Set yourself up ahead of time for less cooking and baking on the day itself. Holly Sheppard, who runs the catering company Fig and Pig Catering, now based in the Hudson Valley after 10 years in Brooklyn, starts cooking and prepping for her Friendsgiving the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. She knocks out dishes like stuffing, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes. “Mashed potatoes are something that people think they have to make the day of, but they don't at all,” she says. (Her secret is to make them smooth and creamy, then add more cream or butter after reheating them at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour in an aluminum pan with a lid.) “I pretty much do no work on the day of,” she says, aside from roasting the turkey and making the gravy. She delegates the rest to friends.

3. Ask for Help

“A lot of people take on things like Thanksgiving all by themselves and there’s no point,” says Holly. “Everyone has a strength, everybody wants to do something.” Just ask people to sign up for a dish or a task, and use a spreadsheet to keep track of who is handing what. Holly circulates hers the first week of November.

4. Create a Bar Area—And Make It the Place for Every Extra Thing

If you don’t have a bar area where people can mix their own drinks—one of the most basic tenets of hosting—clear out a space for one. Linsey Sowa—who manages the Food52 Cookbook Club and Baking Club and runs the private chef and catering company Southernish outside of Chicago with her fiancé, Joseph Rousey—moves furniture out of their living room to make room for a bar station. She then places every possible extra a guest might need—napkins, water, coffee, silverware—beside the bar with a small trash nearby to help keep people out of the kitchen.

“We create this station where folks can kind of help themselves, so we feel a little bit less like we’re stuck in the hosting role. All the extra silverware that you could need or extra napkins and things are displayed nicely as a part of the bar station. That way people just feel empowered to help themselves instead of asking, ‘Hey I need another fork.’ ”

5. Batch a Mixer for Every Drinker

Julia always ensures there is a special drink that everyone can pour for themselves. “My kids always want what adults are drinking,” she says. Instead of making them a separate drink, she batches a mixer that can be turned into a cocktail or a mocktail with a little bit of sparkling water or club soda—perfect for the kids and your guests who don’t drink.

6. Assign Your Serving Dishes—and Your Guests’ Seats

“We pull out all the serving dishes in advance, and I put sticky notes on them [indicating] what goes where,” says Linsey. “I think a lot of people probably do that, but that way, when we’re in the throes of trying to get everything together, we know exactly where everything needs to go.”

She is also a big fan of place cards to make sure certain relatives get the best seats—like her 6’5” uncle and Joe’s father, who is handicapped. Both get comfortable spots that are easy for them to get in and out of.

Children especially love place cards, she says, even if they’re sitting at the kids table. After the first time she used them, “My cousin called me later, and was like, ‘My God, the kids, every dinner they want to have them.’ ”

7. Set Reminders

It can be easy to get lost in conversation once the guests arrive. To keep track of the meal’s timing in the midst of hosting, Julia says she sets “a lot of alarms for things, like to take certain things out of the fridge so that they’re not cold when they're served.”

8. Use the Tools You Own to Keep Your Dishes Warm

Keeping every dish at the perfect temperature before dinner is ready—or even when everything is on the table—requires a little creativity. Linsey’s sous vide comes in handy for keeping her mashed potatoes warm. “We just keep them in a water bath circulating, so they're warm and ready to go until it’s time to serve.”

Holly cooks or reheats everything in the oven after the turkey comes out, then serves everything at once. The only thing she keeps warm throughout the meal is the gravy. Her genius trick is to pour it into a cute, insulated kettle—the kind you might find at a coffee shop. “Then that way, when people want more gravy—because everybody’s always crazy about gravy—it’s on the table and it stays hot.”

9. Make Dessert Easy on Everyone

“By the time we get to dessert, most of the time folks are really full,” says Linsey. So she and her partner gives their guests the option of dessert in a small, portable size: Mini pies. “If somebody wants one, they can grab it off of a platter themselves” or, even pack one to go.

10. Be Ready to Send Leftovers Home

Speaking of leftovers, everyone will want some, so be prepared with Ziplocs and to-go containers. Allison Buford, our Test Kitchen Director, says her mother-in-law purchases packs of to-go platters from Costco that make it easy to portion out leftover meals.

11. Going Big? Get Rentals.

As a caterer, Holly rents everything for weddings and big events. But some rental companies can also provide everything you need to host a holiday dinner at home.

“Years ago, when I had a 40-person Thanksgiving, I rented tables, linens, cutlery, plates, and even glassware. And that’s an awesome way to go…because that takes [away] all the headache.” Best of all—“you don't have to do the dishes.”

More entertaining inspiration from Food52

• Hosting Thanksgiving? This Timeline Will Help
• 10 Dansk Pieces Made for Fall Entertaining (and Curling up at Home)
• Your Best Turkey Starts With These 10 Tools
• 28 Essentials to Set Your Thanksgiving Table, Modern Farmhouse-Style

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What are your tricks for hosting a less stressful, more enjoyable holiday meal? Tell us below!