Here’s a picture of the buffet table I set up for Thanksgiving. I find having people grab their plates and fill them up and then sit down works much better than passing everything around. I can also keep things warm with hot trays and simmering water in crock pots. Gravy and cranberry relish are the only Thanksgiving dishes on the table. This way there is lots of room for glasses, salt and peppers, napkins etc. Our grandson, Nathan, made napkin rings and place cards this year. He was so proud of his accomplishment.

So here’s what we had. In the back row left to right – over simmering water in the large crockpot is a chipotle sweet potato casserole, over the small crockpot are rutabagas, in front of the rutabagas is a 9 X 13 of cornbread sausage stuffing, then corn pudding and Death by Broccoli. In the front row are mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, turkey (breast and stuffed thighs), green beans and roasted creamed onions.

Thanksgiving buffet table

Obviously a lot of this stuff is not for someone who is “dining lite.” I made some extra vegetables so that I would have something to fill up my plate. So reasonable things to eat were turkey breast, gravy, green beans, rutabagas and Brussels sprouts. The mashed potatoes and the sweet potatoes had butter and cream in them. The Death by Broccoli is self explanatory and the creamed onions had cream in them. I did about as well as could be expected which was really not too well. It was hard not to at least try a little of everybody’s dishes. For dessert we had pumpkin pie and Indian pudding with ice cream.

When I used to work for Weight Watchers, I used to remind people that it’s not what you eat on Thanksgiving (or your birthday, or Christmas) that makes you fat. It’s what you eat all the other days of the year. I will try to keep those words in mind the rest of the week.