Martha Stewart Canceled Her Thanksgiving Dinner & Honestly, She's Earned A Break

Martha Stewart rules Thanksgiving. It boggles the mind to even consider how many turkeys and Thanksgiving sides she has cooked over the years, and I wouldn’t recommend asking her about it this year because she is kind of over it. Actually, she’s really over it. Martha Stewart, Queen of Thanksgiving and hosting and breezing through it all with perfectly unmussed hair, has decided to cancel Thanksgiving. She’s “turkeyed out” and she doesn’t care who knows it.

The 82-year-old holiday and hosting maven sat down for a chat with Kelly Clarkson on The Kelly Clarkson Show to talk about her plans for the holidays. Considering Stewart’s longstanding tradition of showing the world how best to cook a turkey, set a table, make incredible side dishes, and maybe pop outside for some apple picking in the middle of the mayhem, you might think she had lots going on. Not this year.

“I gave up Thanksgiving. I canceled,” she proudly told Clarkson. “Nine guests canceled because somebody got sick. So ... I called up my chef friend and I said, ‘We’re not doing Thanksgiving.’” Whoever those nine friends are, I hope they’re proud of themselves. They broke Martha Stewart at Thanksgiving.

Stewart went on to explain to a shocked Clarkson, “I’ve also cooked 14 turkeys already for my TV show, and I still have to [cook] one more turkey on the Today Show, so forget it.”

The two women agreed that Stewart was “turkeyed out,” even before Thanksgiving, and we kind of get it. Especially in her case. She has been sharing her cooking and hosting tips, especially for the holidays, since her first cookbook came out back in 1982. Since then, Martha Stewart has gone on to start her Martha Stewart Living magazine, her cooking show, a line of cooking products and home products, and basically become synonymous of a certain elevated style of hosting the holidays.

She’s earned a break. And this year, she’s taking one. Instead of cooking a Thanksgiving turkey, Stewart told Clarkson she plans to be hosted by several friends. “I made a plan,” the mom and grandmother shared. “Friends, of course, invited me to their home, so I’m going to about five different homes to taste different courses.” Friends who Clarkson suggested would be “stressed out” to host the legendary chef for the holidays. “Oh I hope so,” Stewart laughed. And this is why she is a legend.