The gourds have arrived which means Turkey day is not far behind. While you prep for this year’s feast, we’re cooking up smart home hacks to help lighten your load. Home automation app IFTTT puts your devices to work using “recipes,” each of them like a helping hand around the house when you don’t have one to spare. Short of a full-time robot, there’s no a better way to let your smart home do some of the dirty work this holiday season.

Cook hands-free
To paraphrase Murphy’s Law, if a kitchen crisis is going to happen, it will happen when your hands are tied up with the turkey. But with the help of a simple IFTTT recipe and the Amazon Echo, you can shout instructions to your smart appliances and get things around the kitchen going even when your hands are tied. Try recipes for your WeMo-enabled Crock-Pot Slow Cooker that start the cooking or keep your dish warm.

What you need:

• Amazon Echo
• Crock-Pot Slow Cooker with WeMo

Have the turkey text you when it’s done
Of course, you’d never leave housekeeping for the last minute. But let’s just say you’re… occupied. Somewhere other than the kitchen. In the few short hours after you’ve put the turkey in the oven. Should you find yourself out of earshot of the oven timer, this IFTTT recipe has got you covered. Before you get too close to dry turkey territory, you’ll get a text message from your turkey reminding you to drop whatever it is you were (or weren’t) doing and head back to the kitchen.

What you need:

• Oven that supports Home Connect (from GE, Simmons, Bosch and more)

Eat, drink and be phone-free
It took a lot of prep, and maybe some arm-twisting, to get the family together. Once everyone’s at the table, don’t let the chirping of faraway people spoil the moment. Let IFTTT schedule your mass messages of thanks. Have them sent at a specified time, or create your own recipe that triggers an auto-response any time you get a group message that contains the word “Thanksgiving.”

Share photos without missing a moment
Of course, you get a pass if you’re reaching for your phone to capture the moment on camera. But don’t get lost posting photos to all your social networks. Point and shoot, and let IFTTT handle the sharing. For example, if you take a photo with Instagram, this handy IFTTT recipe will automatically add your photos to a Flickr album. That ought to free your hands for more important things, like stuffing your face with pumpkin pie.

Set Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales alerts.
When all the eating’s done, another binge is just beginning. Shopping may be on your mind, but you don’t have to spend the last hours of Thanksgiving fighting the tryptophan while you hunt for the biggest sales. Thanks to these IFTTT recipes, you’ll be well rested by the time Black Friday kicks off. Have the hottest Black Friday posts from Reddit waiting in your inbox when you get up. Already eyeing a gift? Add your desired price and the product’s URL to this IFTTT recipe, and Semantics3 will email you if the price drops. Just another reason to be thankful for IFTTT this year.

If you’re looking for even more guidance on making your home the ultimate holiday experience this year, check out this post.