We essentially have this dilemma at Christmas (we eat Thanksgiving later, so people don’t get to the house until closer to 4:00). We do Christmas morning at my mom’s, arriving around 11 and she’s doing a big dinner. She always has berries, bacon, and trader joe’s frozen chocolate croissants. The bacon and croissants need cooking, but aren’t hard or very time consuming. She usually also has a package of english muffins available. Then around 1:00 the appetizers come out - that’s usually a charcuterie board with cheese/crackers/grapes/sliced apples and maybe some salami/pepperoni. Some years there are a handful more appetizers, but we’ve all now decided to stop, because then we eat too much, and no one has room for the actual meal.
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We’ll be at BIL’s; he and H run out and get fresh bagels in the am. At BIL’s house we eat around 3:00 to accommodate SIL’s dad (age 91), who comes from memory care for the afternoon. He’s more comfortable being back home before it gets too late in the day.
We don’t bother with lunch. If anyone gets the munchies in the evening after an early TG dinner, heaven knows there will be leftovers!
I’m doung a spread with bagels, croissants, smoked salmon, breakfast sweets and fruit for breakfast.
Lunch are the appetizers -deconstructed stuffed mushrooms, meatballs, smoke fish spread, shrimp cocktail and baked Brie with cranberries.
We also eat around 4 ish for the main event.
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Wash some berries and put out a few boxes of cereal. Done, eat when you want.
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We are actually having brunch this year. All 5 kids are coming the night before, 1 has a 5 mile Turkey trot that morning that the rest bailed on because it’s not a 5k, and she and her bf are heading to his parent’s house for dinner. In the past I haven’t provided food (they were always free to eat, they’re still young enough to hit the bars here Wednesday night). I ordered traditional food from stew Leonard’s and will have quiches and apps as well, charcuterie, cranberry baked Brie, stuffed mushrooms. Various mimosas. On the fence with bagels (2 are celiac).
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I want to pop in and say I went to Stew Leonard’s for the first time while on vacation this fall. I loved it … except for the animatronics!
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It’s a bit of a maze, I needed to buy some Irish whiskey and condensed milk, I figured it was faster to go to stop and shop and a liquor store in the strip mall than try to find the condensed milk at stews. But their prepared food looks good, unfortunately I’m a binge shopper, I’m better off shopping online.
We are headed to the airport. The airline app showed a 30 min delay when in work e up this morning, and our flight isn’t until mid afternoon! I have 2 containers of chocolate chip cookies in my luggage (the one that will be checked). Maybe those will end up as breakfast 
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Our grocery store has gluten free bagels in the freezer section. Since our celiac nephew visits regularly we also keep a gluten free toaster for him. Alternatively those bagels can be toasted in an oven.
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Our grocery store has a great frozen GF case. There were so many bread etc product there that my husband (unaware of the GF indicators) wondered why the store had all their bread in the freezer.
I’m bought this at Costco. I have one packed n the checked luggage to bring to s/DIL and her mom (whom is Irish). But mom will be out of town for Thanksgiving and dau in law is pregnant, so the gift may go unopened. It looks really good. Maybe son will try it in coffee
Yes, Im familiar with gf products (I think canyon ranch is the current favorite bagels), it’s just that we have really good bagel stores here and even the best gf bagels aren’t great. I should be gf, I’m a celiac gene carrier, have bad stomach issues, most in our extended family not positive for celiac is gf anyway, but we have such nice bread/bagels/pizza here.
For breakfast/brunch I bought the Pillsbury orange rolls that Colorado-mom mentioned. (Mariano’s had them on sale here, last week)
Then I’ll have overnight oats available in the fridge along with blueberries, toasted slivered almonds, cinnamon, raisins and dried cranberries as personalized additions.
I also bought a box of the individual guacamole packs from Costco. With Trader Joe’s frozen hash browns (that heat up in the toaster oven in ~20 mins) I think a hash brown with guacamole and a fried egg is an easy meal. People can choose whatever they prefer.
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The Pillsbury pop can of cinnamon rolls used to be a big treat when the kids were little - full of sugar but there were so YUM! I bought some recently because H also used to love them. Wow, I was sorely disappointed - they really seemed to lack in cinnamon flavor! Sometimes products change.
These are quite good if you want to say you “made” cinnamon rolls. You can find them in the frozen food section. Will take only seconds of your time. I pull them out and put in a casserole dish the night before when I’m going to bed and let them rise overnight on top of or next to the stove (covered with parchment). Then just shove in the oven in the morning and snip the frosting packet and spread on the hot rolls. A more generous sized roll too than the Pillsbury ones.
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On no, I bought a can on a whim, haven’t had them since the kids were little, I’ll try adding a little cinnamon.
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Admittedly, my taste buds have probably learned to require a little better product, lol, so maybe you will still like them! I just thought they tasted like frosted hockey pucks!
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This year we have 14 people for dinner and will serve at 4:00pm. For the guests who are staying at our house, breakfast is informal. People eat what they want—we have bagels (thanks to NYC daughter) and cereals and fruit and eggs. I ordered a charcuterie board that I will put out along with fruit.
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With the sober thread running at the same time as this, I hate to admit what I have been having for Thanksgiving breakfast for many years. We usually eat our main meal early (around 1 pm). While we watch the parade and do the food prep, I have a glass of eggnog with a shot of captain morgan rum as my breakfast!
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Well, DH is off to the line at our local renowned bakery. Let’s see if he manages to come home with some prized pastries for the AM.
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Delete.