Simple Thanksgiving

One of my absolute most favorite things about Thanksgiving (other than the fact that our family always gets the entire meal catered, which sounds lame, but try not having to cook a big holiday dinner. just once), is that my kids really get into the spirit of giving thanks. They love getting everyone together, sharing thankful tidbits, and they LOVE decorating for it. Last year, we worked together to make a simple “tablecloth” out of kraft paper on which they traced place settings and wrote placecards right on the paper, next to which they had me write one thing for which they were thankful about that particular person. Somehow there ended up being a lot of “I’m thankful Uncle Steve wrestles” comments, but you’re thankful for what you’re thankful for I guess. This year, my son chose to spend one of his “mommy and me times” by going to the store to purchase Thanksgiving decor supplies. We arrived (early in November, keep in mind) to find that Christmas had already blown up everywhere. There was one pitiful end case of Thanksgiving supplies. As we left the store, he declared that he had “decoration sickness,” or sadness from lack of holiday-appropriate supplies. So funny. Don’t worry, we more than made up for it. But just in case you find yourself in a similar situation this year, I pulled together a few ideas of simple Thanksgiving decor, and many of them are geared toward help from the littlest among your thankful bunch.

1. metallic pumpkins, like these from PopSugar, are insanely easy to make and require only gourds you’ve got kickin around from Halloween and some spray paint. and if you’re comfortable letting a youngster with the spraypaint, you can’t really go wrong seeing as you’re covering the entire thing (and don’t forget about AFL’s lacquered pumpkin placecards from earlier this week — they’d be fab in the center of your table as well).

2. American Indian headdresses for kids are certainly not a novel idea, but the bright colors of this particular set uploaded by a Pinterest user caught my eye. heck I’d sit at the kids table if I got to wear one.

3. interactive and functional, this cutlery cover rocks. and it’s made out of a simple piece of folded paper. I’m definitely adding these to our table this year.

4. a pop-art colored garland! Poppytalk breaks down the easy steps of making this felt garland, but you could do it one easier — just print the letters out onto colored paper and cut. it might still be worth purchasing that font, though. fabulous.

5. Spoonful’s grateful conversation jar is a sweet way to involve all diners in the holiday spirit and I bet you’ll be surprised at what kids come up with. check out Spoonful’s tutorial, complete with feather template.

6. a thanksgiving tree, like this one from Shim & Sons, is another simple way to incorporate the thankful thoughts of friends and family. and since you make it ahead of time, you have slightly more moderating control over what might come out of your littles little mouths.

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