Holiday stress

With Thanksgiving next week and Christmas shortly after, I'm starting to break out in hives from the holiday season. This year, my aunt is unable to host Thanksgiving, a tradition that dates back at least a decade, and somehow, my mother tricked me into hosting Thanksgiving for our extended family at my home.

True, several family members will be out of town, but I've never had 12 people over at the same time and I've certainly never had to cook for that many people before! It doesn't help that work has been heating up and I need to build various cases to get budget for the next fiscal year right about now.

I've been looking through recipes and consulting with Puppy about what is easily cooked when you're limited by having only one oven which will be reserved for a gigantic turkey. And each time, my heart races and I start to sweat a little, which is probably a good thing because I haven't been to the gym in eons.

And now that I'm house-poor, I'm going to research some artsy-and-crafty gifts for Christmas.