The Critical Mom's Pre-Thanksgiving Jitters

There's always the moment when I finally find the fresh cranberries.  One year my husband brought home two jars of "Preiselbeeren" and I said "Noo! Nooooo!" but then somehow we found fresh ones.  Ocean Spray!  Without the logo.  I guess the only source in the world for fresh cranberries is that big bog on Nantucket.
This time at least nobody had to drive for an hour.  I found them, actually, on my fourth try, and that ain't bad.  They weren't in Lidl.  They weren't in the Edeka at Kaufhof because it's no longer there--they seem to have dismantled that particular link in the chain of a very popular grocery store.  They weren't in the Edeka on Gemarkenplatz.  But there they were in Rewe!  The expensive store that has everything.
Except.
No McCormack's Vanilla.  That's always an expensive purchase on Amazon, or a gift from friends in the States.
But once I have my fresh cranberries, I stop hyperventilating.  Then the only other thing to worry about is the size of the turkey.  Every year I order a 10-kilo bird.  Every year they say sure, they've got one.  Last year they gave us a 6-kilo bird, which was okay, because we only had a bout ten people, total, but this year we're having 16 or 17.  Not tomorrow, the real Thanksgiving, because Germans never heard of that--last year when they sold me a turkey they said, "Happy Advent!"  We're celebrating this Saturday, so I'm still planning.  And one of my guests, a young Italian, asked, when I invited him, whether Thanksgiving was "a Catholic holiday." No.  I promise to make it make it as pagan as possible.  You'll be comatose after the corn muffins, the bird baked in bacon, the stuffing with celery and onions and butter, butter, butter á la Fanny Farmer, the gravy, the cranberry-orange-cinnamon sauce, the new potatoes, the sweet potatoes, the Swedes-'n-carrots, the Brussels sprouts, the peas, the champagne, the wine, the pies (pumpkin, apple, cranberry-apple) the cookies (oatmeal) and somebody is bringing chocolate mousse.
That oughta do us. 
Mouth watering yet?

P.S.  So now it is The Day Of.  The rest of the world is immersed in Black Friday and Saturday or Advent and my turkey--15 pounds American or 7.5 kilos--is incubating . . .