I second brining the turkey. It makes the turkey taste great even without gravy, and the meat comes out a lot more tender and juicy, not to mention the skin was fantastic (a real guilty pleasure). It was relatively simple to do, too. Find a brine recipe (we used
this one this year, mainly because we trust Alex, and because we had all of the ingredients in house. We placed our turkey in one of those
extra-large ziploc bags with the brine overnight in our garage. This is the second year we've done a brine, and I don't think we'll go back.