Hello and Happy Thursday!  Are you ready for Thanksgiving?  Because it’s ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!

Woo! Panicked yet?  Well, don’t be.  Just get your turkey out of the freezer, because today is National Turkey Thaw Day.  I wonder if that calls for a special cocktail?

If you’re cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, congratulations!  Pat yourself on the back, because you’re doing a good thing — and an easy thing, if you do it right. And no I don’t mean making oyster stuffing from scratch, I mean defrosting the turkey correctly so that no one winds up with food poisoning.  Because that can totally ruin a holiday.

The first step to preparing a delicious Thanksgiving dinner is defrosting the turkey the right way — which does NOT include leaving it in the trunk of your car or in the garage or out on the back porch.  What is the right way to defrost a turkey?  Butterball has the answers, no matter what kind of turkey you’re dealing with, or how fast you need to get it defrosted.

But let’s assume you’ve already bought the turkey (you HAVE already bought your turkey, right?) — today is the day to start defrosting.  Put the turkey in the fridge, in a shallow tray, and leave it there for the next week.  Seriously — as long as the turkey stays at 40 degrees, you’re good to go.  Don’t have room in the fridge?  Or just forgot to buy a turkey?  There are faster ways to defrost, but you need to follow the directions, please.

But I’m curious — what’s YOUR biggest turkey question?  Seriously — what is the one Thanksgiving-related thing that keeps you up at night?  Let’s hear it.

(Mine is wondering how on earth I’m going to get everything ready at the same time.  Or how I’m going to convince my kids to actually eat the food I’ve made.)

This post is one in a series sponsored by Butterball, as part of my job as a Turkey Talk-Line blogger.