The Ultimate Thanksgiving Shopping Guide: Everything You Need to Plan the Perfect Holiday Celebration

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Food Lion. All opinions are 100% mine.

Shopping for your Thanksgiving celebration can be overwhelming but it doesn’t have to be if you are prepared! I’m going to walk you through the process of creating your own personal Thanksgiving Shopping Guide so you know exactly what to buy in the next two weeks to prepare for your feast!

This year I was looking at The Food Lion Blog and they have a fantastic printable Thanksgiving shopping guide for the traditional Thanksgiving meal with links to great recipes and a cheat sheet! Here are the steps you need to follow as you prepare to shop for and host Thanksgiving.

First, you need to figure out how many guests are going to be joining you. That’s your starting point. If you have guests joining you overnight, is there anything you need to purchase to accommodate your guests like pillows, toiletries, new guest towels, special types of tea or coffee, etc. (I like to buy my mother-in-law her favorite morning tea for instance.) If you have extra children coming to your home for Thanksgiving, you might also want to purchase toys or games to keep them happily occupied. If you don’t have any added expenses to please guests, that’s perfect you can move on to the next step. If you do have something you need to purchase, place those items at the top of your list and don’t forget to purchase them before your guests arrive.

Second, you need to set a budget for decorations and supplies if you will be purchasing anything special, and make a list of the decorations you want to find. For me, that list usually includes paper plates, napkins, dessert plates, and maybe some window clings or centerpieces if I haven’t covered that already. So that’s the second category on your list and is definitely something you can shop for ahead of time. I love the Thanksgiving plates I found at Food Lion. They are the perfect special touch to help us Make More Merry during the holidays. Third, you need a menu. This will be determined by your budget, your skillset, and the traditions of your family. If you have special dietary considerations like gluten-free guests or diabetics, now is the time to consider that as well. Until you have a complete menu, you won’t be able to make a solid grocery list so this step is important. Now, don’t underestimate how much time it is going to take you to write a menu! Holiday menus are sometimes a point of contention in our house, so you need time to go over the menu ideas with your spouse and make sure the two of you reach a good compromise. You may also want to take requests from your children. Make sure you look at the Weekly deals because its a great way to get ideas! Here’s a breakdown of the menu you are planning.

Breakfast on Thanksgiving Day – should be light and easy but enough to hold your children over for the big meal.
Dinner on Thanksgiving Day – should follow your family traditions and may include turkey or other meat, side dishes, and bread but may also be something entirely different.
Dessert on Thanksgiving Day – again this should follow your family traditions and be enough to serve everyone.
If you are having guests, will they be bringing anything to share? If yes, you can mark those items off your list!

Finally, you need to be very thorough when you make your grocery list. Nothing is more aggravating than finding out you don’t have enough butter, enough sugar, enough flour, or eggs, or you are missing some key ingredient needed for your Thanksgiving feast! One year, I didn’t realize that every pie needed a stick of butter, we needed butter for the homemade bread, and one of the other dishes, and we ran out of butter before our meal even started! Better to go over it three times than to not have butter for your bread. That’s my motto. Make sure you think of everything, and if you are making something you don’t make very often pull out the recipe and give it a once over to be sure you don’t forget anything. Don’t forget things like drinks, ice, and extra toilet paper!

As a bonus, you might want to go over your plans for leftovers and buy any special ingredients needed to use up the leftovers as well. You could even have your entire shopping list delivered using Online Shopping with pick up or delivery. Food Lion to Go makes holiday shopping fast and easy! We have enjoyed making paninis with our leftover turkey in the past, but that isn’t possible without some good panini bread. Other years we make a turkey and biscuits dish that calls for pimientos. They can be left out, but they do add nice flavor and color! Nothing is worse than having to run into a grocery store on Black Friday just so you can put all those leftovers to good use throughout the weekend after Thanksgiving.