Thanksgiving Is Coming, What's a Busy Family Going to Do?

Yes, Turkey Day will soon be here and the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner is a lot of work. Add an unreliable oven to mix and you have the potential for disaster. The last two years I cooked the turkey on the grill. Last year Thanksgiving was a very windy day. The fire on grill was blown out and the grill ran out of gas. Fortunately, my family lives in Florida so I don't have to worry about having guests. So it's just the three of us with an occasional neighbor popping in for dessert. So this year, in order to avoid a disaster, I am ordering Thanksgiving Dinner pre-made. So here are some local stores providing pre-cooked Turkey Day dinners with my thoughts and impressions. The turkeys in most cases are 8-10 pounds unless otherwise noted. Going by the one pound per person rule, that's enough for eight people.
Safeway's Dinner has turkey for $37.99 or spiral cut ham for $46.99 with complimenting sides for each. If you are really sick and tired of turkey (and by New Year's most people are) there is a prime rib dinner for $59.99.
Giant Foods has turkey or spiral ham for $49.99 (bonus card price). It's enough to serve 8-10 people. However, the sides come from Boston Market.
Which brings us to Boston Market's holiday menu. They have a boneless turkey breast dinner for $51.99 for six people. But that's a turkey breast, so if you like meat, you're SOL. So if you really like Boston Market's side dishes, I'd go with Giant's turkey dinner.
If you can afford it and have guests you really need to impress. I'd go with Whole Foods' turkey dinner package. You can feed eight for $129.99 or fifteen for $229.99. That includes an oven ready turkey. You have to cook the turkey, but at least you get to say you actually cooked the turkey. But if the idea of cooking a turkey is too overwhelming, you can get a roasted turkey for $12.99 a pound. You can also order your sides a la carte. Whole Foods is also the only place where I have seen tofurky. If you are really a hardcore vegan, here's a recipe to make your own tofurky. Since my son got a Fairly Oddparents book about a traditional tofurky dinner, we tease him about getting a tofurky for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
The Washington Post's food section has a more complete listing. However, they don't provide complete links like I do.