This is just my personal opinion, but I am a HUGE fan of spacing it out as much as possible. Yesterday I did pie crusts, today I do cranberry sauce, tomorrow I do the big shopping trip, and on Wednesday I still have to pick up and brine the turkey, do my squash soup, and assemble casseroles, not to mention do half the gravy. The actual turkey day I do the turkey, finish the gravy with drippings, pop preassembled casseroles in the oven, roast carrots, and warm and finish the soup. I am probably forgetting something. If you’re just doing fifteen minutes here and 30 there, it doesn’t seem like such a huge feast to prepare all by yourself. Other people do it differently, I know, but I do everything that doesn’t HAVE to be done on Wednesday or Thursday earlier. (With added benefits like that whole “too tart cranberry sauce” thing as just a little bonus.)
I did that last year, with their dry-brining technique (on my first turkey ever), and it turned out great.
What’s “dry brining” ? Just rub kosher salt all over the bird?
Please do. I’ll shove a ladle full of gravy in your mouth. 
I have an herb garden, and my rosemary just exploded. I shall have plenty to flavor the turkey. Plus my chives are all over the place…I think I’ll snip some and put them in the mashed potatoes.
As a very easy way of keeping a turkey moist, I always cover the little bastard with lots of bacon while roasting.
And that makes a tasty treat for the carver too.
more or less. Then you let it sit. Then you rinse it off.
It saves the trouble of dealing with the water (and moving it, and draining it, and keeping it from splashing everywhere) you need for normal brining.
It’s probably too late for you for this year, but… if you buy a kosher turkey, it’s already pre-brined. Part of the koshering process involves salting the turkey (to soak out the blood.)
BTW, this is why kosher fowl almost always tastes so much better than non-kosher birds… the kosher ones have been brined.
Brining is easy-peasy! I tried it last year and the breast was perfect and moist. However, I’m in south Texas, and the weather is not exactly conducive to keeping a bird in a bucket. I bought one of those Igloo coolers with the spigot, you know the ones contruction workers use for ice water? (A tall cylindrical one.) It’s perfectly turkey sized, and I can fill it with brine and ice and stick it off in a corner of the kitchen.
Do it! (And absolutely put chopped boiled eggs in your giblet gravy. 
Do y’all say it jiblet or giblet with a hard “g”? Just to start another argument… Hee!)
I’m taking your advice :). I just made the first batch of cranberry sauce. Holy crap, that was easy. Why in the world do people buy the stuff in the can?? 
I’m just letting it cool, and then I’ll stick it in the fridge. I’m going to make two batches - I LOVE cranberry sauce, so I can always freeze some and defrost when I feel like having some turkey.
I also made the cornbread tonight, and will do my shop tomorrow night, as well as make the spiced nuts for the appetizers.
That should leave me with not a ton to do on Thursday aside from the turkey, potatoes, and yams, and stuffing - which is totally doable.
OK, I know I’m coming in late, but brining - aside from the fact that you have to do a little more advance prep to get the brine made / cooled and the bird soaking in advance, makes roasting the turkey so much easier. See, it makes your cooking time a lot more forgiving. Leave it in the oven a bit too long? The meat is STILL MOIST!
As far as containers and keeping the bird cold enough while brining - the recipe I use came with instructions on how to do it in roasting bags, in a roasting pan. This means it fits in the fridge.
The recipe I use makes just under a gallon of brine. Much more brine that that might not fit in the bags if you’ve got a larger turkey, I imagine.
Buy some extra bags of cranberries and throw them in the freezer while you’re at it - they can be hard to find the rest of the year. Seriously - if you’re going to cook anything for the holiday, why not cook the thing you can make a week ahead of time by throwing things in a saucepan and turning on the burner? But then I don’t think there’s really anything most people eat traditionally for Thanksgiving that’s hard to make, except maybe pie crusts, or if a roux is intimidating to you (not hard, just some people freak out about it.)