Get a glimpse into one family’s time-honored Thanksgiving Day traditions. Making Thanksgiving a fun and simple occasion for the whole family. Additional Thanksgiving resources and activities included. 

Thanksgiving is approaching fast! You can almost taste the moist, mouth-watering turkey with the homemade mashed potatoes ‘n gravy. Not to mention the kitchen counter filled with pies of every kind.

Thanksgiving – the second biggest family holiday next to Christmas – is the day for those time-honored family traditions that are anticipated and looked forward to by both the young and the old. Does that mean Thanksgiving always goes smoothly? No way! That would be preposterous and so unreal! But it does mean a day of guaranteed fun where memories are made, cherished, and re-lived on the family’s digital frame for years to come. 

Through the years, there is one thing that I have learned – that family traditions are vitally important. They are never perfect by any means, but they are essential in building strong family relationships that will last through eternity.

A wonderful fact about traditions is that they can take the stress out of the holidays. Traditions take less time and energy to plan because they are basically already planned for you. The more simple the tradition, the easier and more enjoyable the holiday becomes. If you haven’t made any long-lasting traditions, perhaps now is the time to start.

Here are a few traditions you might consider:

1. BREAKFAST & PARADE: Our family always starts each Thanksgiving morning eating cinnamon rolls and drinking hot chocolate while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. (please don’t assume the cinnamon rolls are homemade – sometimes they are but most times they’re not) My favorite part? The hot chocolate, definitely! Because it’s my favorite, I’m usually the one in charge of it. I love providing a variety of flavorings to add to our hot chocolate. To top it off, you have your choice of miniature marshmallows or a dollop of whip cream with a sprinkle of chocolate chips.  *You can buy all different shapes, sizes, and brands of flavorings. Here’s a few of our favorites: 

2. FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL: I’m not sure that Thanksgiving would be Thanksgiving without football 🙂 Growing up, football actually wasn’t a big part of Thanksgiving Day, we were more of a movie-binge-watching family. (Think Superman, Rocky, or Star Wars) But with my husband’s family, football was almost as vital as the turkey.

After we’ve eaten breakfast and watched a big part of the parade, everyone gets ready to play some flag football. We meet at a local town park that has a large playing area. Years ago our family invested in a couple of flag football sets like the one you see below and we are still using them today.

We have found that flag football works best with little ones, still making it fun for everyone. We always try to have enough flags for everyone who wants to play. Anyone who doesn’t want to play, sits in the cheering section to cheer us all on.

My favorite part of it all? Is Grandpa who plays referee and has 10+ penalty flags hanging around his waist that he loves to throw whenever he pleases. (his flags are really a bunch of old rags) He is also equipped with a whistle and microphone headset as pictured below. I also LOVE the Aunt who brings her camera and takes some pretty fun action shots of the game. (more on that latter)

*If you don’t have a lot of family to play football with, consider inviting the missionaries and/or friends who also don’t have much family to hang out with this year.     

3. PUZZLES: This is the one time of the year that our family enjoys doing a puzzle or two together. We have one set out on the coffee table or small table somewhere in the living room so people can see it and work on it throughout the day. The 100 piece puzzles tend to work best for us. The younger kids can do them and we are sure to have it done by the end of the day. Check out some fun ones here:

4. DINNER: What’s great about having dinner with extended family or with friends? It’s getting to divide up the cooking. Don’t feel like you have to do it alone, delegating is the key to not being overwhelmed in the kitchen. When it comes to menu planning for this day, I’m totally a traditional Thanksgiving dinner type-of-girl. I LOVE turkey and I LOVE mashed potatoes n’ gravy. Here are a few other recipes that my family and I love as well:

Orange Fluff Jello Salad

Jimmy Dean’s Sausage Cornbread Stuffing

Sweet Potatoe Casserole with Brown Sugar Topping

Peanut Butter Pie 

5. REPLAY: One of the things I love about our Thanksgiving feast, besides all the delicious food, is watching the replay footage of our football game. While we are gathered around eating, we play all of the fun photos that the Aunt took during the flag football game earlier that day. She puts all the photos on a flash drive and we connect it to a TV (or you can also display the photos using a laptop and a projector). There is always lots of laughter involved and many witty remarks made, making it one of our family’s favorite things to do.

6. NAP AND MORE FOOTBALL: After playing football and eating until you just can’t eat anymore, a nap usually comes next. I mean, who doesn’t look forward to a nap on Thanksgiving Day? And I don’t mind falling asleep watching a football game on TV. This can also be a great quiet time for younger kids to color, work on the puzzle, play a board game, read books or watch a special movie planned just for that day. 

7. PIES, PIES AND MORE PIES: I’m fortunate enough that although the majority of my family lives many states away, I do have one sister that lives in the same town as me. Her family has the tradition each year to have a Pie Party every Thanksgiving night. They invite all of their family (which includes me and my brother-in-law’s 10 siblings) to come over for visiting and pie eating. My sister makes some yummy pies plus each family who attends has to bring a pie of their own. It makes for an amazing selection of pies to choose from! My sister spreads the pies out all over her dining room table with more on the hutch and small tables around her living room/dining room area. I can’t think of a more perfect way to end Thanksgiving Day!

The pie party is also a great time to strategize with other family members over Black Friday 🙂 

Another family tradition we have, but is not included above, is our Thankful Pumpkin. Throughout the month of November, we write things we are thankful for on a pumpkin. Check out the idea by clicking HERE.

We also spend our FHE’s in the month of November focused on gratitude and ways we can serve others. 

I hope my family’s time-endured Thanksgiving traditions have sparked a few ideas of your own. For some more ideas, I’ve included some additional Thanksgiving traditions and resources below.

CARTOONS

*All cartoons on this post are by Arie Van De Graff from Ward Cartoonist. You can see more of his work by clicking HERE. He offers a Ward Cartoonist Activity Page Newsletter where you can receive a new activity page every Friday morning delivered to your inbox–just in time for that primary class your teaching, sacrament meeting with the kids, or Family Home Evening. I’m a big fan of his work and my son LOVES his activity pages 🙂 For more info on his newsletter, click HERE

Additional Thanksgiving Traditions and Resources:

1.Gratitude Photo Scavenger Hunt by Let’s Get Together blog or their Turkey Ticket  – both great ideas for family traditions.

2. M&M Gratitude Activity from Overstuffed – a fun and simple way for family members to say what they are thankful for. Here’s another version by Happy go Lucky.

3.Free Thanksgiving coloring pages for kids – includes cute turkey pictures. Or try this pretty Thanksgiving coloring page from Hope Ink. 

4.Need an FHE idea? Try this fun “Cup Runneth Over” idea from When the Family Gets Together blog.

5.For Videos – check out Pres. Nelson’s called Give Thanks from LDS.org OR this Mormon Message that interviews random people on the streets of NYC called In the Spirit of Thanksgiving

6.And for a great story that comes with a video on the importance of being happy with what you are given, click HERE 

7.How about making your own video? Kids love making videos! Someone suggested having kids make a Thanksgiving video while the adults are still cooking. They can record family members saying what they are thankful for or a video of them just being silly (away from the kitchen, of course!)

8.JustServe.org is a great place to find service projects the whole family can do together. What better way to appreciate what you have than by helping others in need.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yours Truly,

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