Slaving over an oven for the Holidays? GET OVER IT!!!

Back in the Colonial days you slaved over the fireplace...every damned day.

How about roasting that turkey, oh yeah, throw it in a pan, throw it in an oven and set the dial for dead bird. When the time goes off, or that Little pokey pop thing pops up....it's done. Done as you set in the living room with your feet up watching TV.

Back when the fireplace was the main cooking area, and you had money, you put the roast in your reflective oven and every so often rotated the meat and re-pined the meat working roughly like a rotisserie meats. 

How did the less fortunate cook their roasts

Simple, by spin string.

One end of a string tied to the mantle, the other end tied to the pins in a roast. Place a pan beneath the roast, wind the string up by rotating the food. When tight "about mid hearth height" release. meat will spin down and back up by momentum. When meat stops spinning, rewind. Works like a cheap rotisserie.