Happy Thanksgiving! Will this be your first Turkey Day in New Orleans? You are in for a treat. Here are some options from our Instagram friends and other people we’ve asked.

• Grab your friends and cook a meal for Friendsgiving. Here are our foolproof recipes for a Southern Thanksgiving, including cornbread dressing.

• Head to a restaurant. These 5 places are cooking a classic spread. Don’t want turkey? All of these other restaurants are open.

• Keep an eye out for oyster dressing and shrimp and mirliton dressing. These are dishes you are only going to find in New Orleans and southeast Louisiana. FYI – a mirliton is a squash. Read more about it. Here’s how it’s grown:

• Volunteer at the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office annual Thanksgiving meal. The event is Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in Hall I-2. Free parking is available for volunteers. Here’s more info about volunteering.

• Head to the racetracks at the Fair Grounds. There will be horse races and food. Here’s the menu and prices.

• Deliver meals Thanksgiving morning. The East Jefferson YMCA coordinates the effort. Here’s the volunteer info. (Update: all the spots have been filled for 2014)

Interested in more Thanksgiving traditions in New Orleans? Here’s a video Tulane University put together a few years ago:

Been in New Orleans for Thanksgiving before? What do you recommend we do, eat and see?

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Header photo by Tim Sackton and used via a Creative Commons license.