Tips and Ideas for planning a thankful holiday for your family and friends! Don’t let it be stressful, make this a Thanksgiving everyone will remember for years to come!
Thanksgiving Decorations
- Decorate your tables by covering them with orange flat paper. Group tissue pumpkins in the center, and scatter tissue leaves and a few foil wrapped chocolates in fall colors down the center of the table.
- For a terrific but budget friendly table, use large autumn leaf cutouts as mini placemats. Add gold metallic plates, gold plastic cutlery, and orange napkins. Scatter a little gold confetti or metallic shred in the center of the table.
- Tie bows made of raffia (leave long, flowing tails on the bows) around the stems of real uncarved pumpkins or gourds and place a few in the center of each table.
- Create a centerpiece by filling a cornucopia/basket with nuts, apples, gourds, Indian corn, fall leaves, and silk or fresh mums. Many specialty and grocery store bakeries are now offering bread in a cornucopia shape—you can eat the centerpiece during the meal!
Find great Thanksgiving Party Ideas, click here
Thanksgiving Games & Activities
- Turkey Calling Contest – Host a turkey calling contest, complete with lots of squawking, flapping, wattle shaking, and pecking. Give each participant a prize with a fun distinction: “loudest turkey”, “most authentic”, “most likely to be spared”, “cutest turkey”, etc. This activity can also be turned into a relay race with family and friends split into two teams. Loud, but fun! (Ages 4-Adult)
- If you are entertaining a large group of young children, these games are perfect for those aged 10 and under. Many of these classic games can be converted to tie to a thanksgiving/harvest theme with a simple name or prop change. Try one of the following:
- “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” – “Pin the Wattle on the Turkey”
- “Duck, Duck, Goose” – “Turkey, Turkey, Stuffing”
- “Hot Potato” – “Hot Turkey” (with a stuffed animal turkey)
- “Musical Hats” – “Musical Pilgrim Hats”
- “Bingo” – use candy corn as game pieces
- “Dress Up Relay” – Use simple scarecrow, Native American or Pilgrim costumes.
- “Ring Toss” – “Ring around the Gourd” (assign different point values to different sizes of gourds, pumpkins, or dried Indian corn.
- “Three Legged or Sack Races” – Add an autumnal touch by creating an obstacle course using pumpkins, corn stalks and bales of hay.
- Traditional Game Day: Create a personalized family Thanksgiving Charades Game. During the week leading up to Thanksgiving, ask each family member to write down or ask a parent to write down, something that they are thankful for, big or small. Add to the jar throughout the week. On Thanksgiving Day, pull the papers out of the jar during a fun game of charades. On Thanksgiving Day also play traditional board games
- Family trivia quiz. Create your own family trivia game. Starting early, create simple multiple-choice questions concerning each family member. The questions can be simple or more difficult. You might ask favorite foods, music, or colors. Name of first pet; first grade teacher, childhood teddy etc. Let each family member see how well they know his or her family. For fun, structure it from easy to hard like “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”™.
Find great Thanksgiving Snack Ideas and Foods to serve, click here
 "Thanksgiving Party")
 "Thanksgiving Party")
 "Thanksgiving Party")
