This year’s Thanksgiving was definitely one nobody expected. Instead of making a giant dinner for over 15 guests, we made a small dinner for 5 guests which were my grandparents and one other family. Along with the unusually small meal, I was in charge of making the turkey and cranberry sauce. This year was my first time making the turkey, so naturally, I was a little nervous. This year, my school was giving out free turkeys to use up part of their budget, so my mom and I picked one up. It was tightly wrapped in netting, and we decided to brine the turkey while it was still in the netting. On Thanksgiving day, it is time to stuff the turkey, so I cut the netting, which reveals that we didn’t get a whole turkey, we just got 4 large turkey breasts wrapped in the shape of a turkey. Since the school advertised it as a “whole turkey,” my mom and I didn’t have any reason to make sure all the parts were there. This came as a shock to me, so after I prepped all of the ingredients, instead of cooking it on a tray, I put it into a dutch oven, seasoned it like it was a whole turkey, layered all of the stuffing throughout the dutch oven, and poured some vegetable broth in the dutch oven to keep the moisture. After it was fully cooked, my mom cut it up and put it on a fancy plate. This taught me that things may not go according to plan, and the important thing is to remain calm and think of how you can fix it.