10 iOS Apps to Reduce Your Thanksgiving Weekend Stress

by Nathan Eddy

Far more than just a cookbook, the app also features nutritional information, how-to videos, conversion and substitution charts, and Butterball’s handy cooking calculator to plan perfect portions and to guarantee proper defrost and cook times needed for your Thanksgiving turkey. Plus, the app features dozens of delicious ways to use leftover turkey, so you can continue the feast all weekend without fuss.

At $5 it’s not the cheapest app out there, but 2 million users have found this app to revolutionize their organization strategies—and if you’re going to have the whole family over for dinner, nothing is going to be as simple as it seems. The app features iCloud sync built-in so you can be productive everywhere, and it allows you to set reminders so you’ll never forget important tasks—like defrosting the turkey.

When you’ve got 10 things cooking simultaneously, the timer on your microwave isn’t going to cut it. This visual kitchen timer can be used to manage multiple cook times for your stovetop and oven, allowing you to set up to nine timers at once—five stovetop and four oven timers—complete with 15 customizable audio alerts with local and push notifications when the time is up, even if the app is running in the background.

Sure, Thanksgiving is all about family, but who is really closer to your heart and mind than your hometown football team, and who is Aunt Edna to tell you that it’s time to turn the television off anyway? Get breaking news, in-game highlights, live game scores and custom team news, and follow your fantasy football team, watch Fantasy Live and more—all from your iPhone, which can conveniently be hidden under the dinner table.

Take a break from cooking (or Uncle Charlie’s umpteenth recount of his last fishing trip) and get updated on real-time goodies from Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade like last-minute surprise acts, behind-the-scenes preparations, pictures and videos of your favorite floats, balloons and musical acts. As a bonus, use Macy’s Elf-O-Matic Augmented Reality Camera to add your face, then blow into your phone’s microphone to inflate and create a virtual balloon of yourself.

Kayak, which has one of the highest ratings of any travel app on the market, is still the ultimate one-stop shop for booking flights, hotel rooms and car rentals (all of which you should have done already). It also offers features such as itinerary management and flight tracking, so you can know how much longer you’ll be hanging out in the Wolfgang Puck at LAX Wednesday evening. Ha, ha, just kidding—we hope.

If you’re on the road for the holiday weekend, chances are you’re going to hit some snags, but this traffic, routing and road alert app can help you choose your fastest route, decide the best time to leave, know your arrival time in advance, and share it with friends and family so that there’s plenty of stuffing left over if you’re running late. The app also lets you report immediately and share accidents, hazards and police activity, in case you’re all headed to the same destination at different times.

If you feel like the at-hand responsibilities are getting a bit much, take a moment to send a far-flung friend or family member a warm greeting—it will calm you down and help spread the cheer. The Vintage Thanksgiving Cards app puts an antique spin on the ubiquitous e-card trend, featuring a selection of more than 100 classic cards from the Victorian era to post-war America. You can email as many as you like, or even use them as background wallpaper.

The Thanksgiving Jokes app may not win you any stand-up comedy prizes, but it might relieve some tension while everyone’s waiting for the turkey to be ready or smooth over any controversial comments by the more extreme members of the family. These kid-friendly jokes are just as likely to make you groan as laugh, but hey, that’s all part of the holiday experience, isn’t it?

Don’t go alone if you plan to brave the Black Friday crowds this year. Take along TGIBF—once you find a deal you like, you can just add it to your list in the app. The app gives you all the deals from popular retail chains, with the ability sort by store or category. Or you can just search for the special you’re hoping to find, and it even includes a picture of the circular or advertisement in which the Black Friday sale appears.