Thanksgiving brings both cheer and dread. If you’re hosting your first turkey dinner at your new home, be prepared for feeling excited to see your friends and family while simultaneously wanting to rip your hair out. While your trendy cousin’s new vegan diet is great and all, it sure puts a wrench in your planned recipes, but it’s nothing compared to the challenge of dealing with your triplet toddler nieces. Regardless of who you are, there’s no doubt your Thanksgiving crowd is weird and wonderful, so follow these few tips to help your Turkey Day run smoothly:

Picky Eaters

Whether it’s your cousin refusing to eat anything with animal by-product or the three-year old triplets sorting their food by color, you need to include a few picky eater friendly food items. For a vegan or vegetarian dish, give stuffing, baked potatoes, or sweet potato casserole a whirl. And for some kid-approved grub, you can’t go wrong with mac n’ cheese, banana bread, and candied yams.

Adults and Kids Table

One of the best ways to show off your fancy hosting skills while avoiding broken china and spills on antique table cloths is to set up separate kid and adult tables. For the kids table, pull out your old card table from storage and serve turkey on Thanksgiving-inspired plastic cutlery. As for the grown-up table, you can wow with your fine china and fancy wine glasses you’ve been keeping in your storage unit for just such an occasion. 

Too Many Chefs in the Kitchen

It’s great everyone wants to lend a helping hand, but sometimes you’ve got it under control and more hands mean more problems. Keep both kids and adults out from under your feet in the kitchen with entertainment elsewhere. Why not set up the karaoke machine in the living room, organize a good old fashion game of charades, or challenge the adults to a game of Mario Kart? Set out appetizers and photo albums filled with pictures of family holidays over the years to occupy your home guests until the turkey is ready for carving.