Free Holiday Ideas » Thanksgiving Ideas

Thanksgiving Centerpiece Ideas

kthomas — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:53:26 +0000

I guess this will be much more useful next year, but I’m going to show you some of the Thanksgiving decorating ideas my mom had around the house for our delicious dinner. (Thanks for all your hard work, Mom. I can’t believe you had everything looking so beautiful and cooked most of the meal on top of it!)
First, the sideboard Thanksgiving centerpiece:

Next, the table itself:

Finally, the lovely Autumn wreath on the front door:

Disguise a Turkey for Thanksgiving

kthomas — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 14:35:01 +0000

This craft was so fun that my little niece had to fight off the grownups to work on it. Her teacher sent her home with the assignment of disguising a turkey so that no one could find it and cook it. She decided she would send her turkey on a cruise to the Caribbean and dressed her accordingly.

Printable Thanksgiving Word Search

kthomas — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:23:31 +0000

Printables for Kids has a nice printable Thanksgiving word search up. I love printing off a stack of holiday worksheets and activities like this. I stick them in one of those office in box trays and as soon as the words “I’m bored” escape someone’s lips, I send the child to the tray to grab an activity sheet.

Thanksgiving Garland

kthomas — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:33:08 +0000

I love garlands and buntings. I love vintage buttons. Put them together and you have a cheery Thanksgiving garland to hang. These are really easy to make. We whipped ours up in about an hour. I wanted to press it, but the little guy wanted to hang it right away. Guess who won.
To make a Thanksgiving garland, you will need enough buttons to spell out your message, a nice heavy wool felt, a matching ribbon and contrasting rickrack. We cut the felt into flag shapes, hot glued the buttons on and hot glued the rickrack to the edges of the flags. Then, we spaced them out on the ribbon and glued it all into place. We left about a foot of extra ribbon on each end so we could tie the garland to something.

Thanksgiving Countdown Activity

kthomas — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:18:37 +0000

This year, we are doing a Thanksgiving countdown activity that I hope will become a yearly tradition. The kids and I made and decorated a box with a slit in the top and a pocket on the front. The pocket holds blank slips of paper. Every day, everyone will write what they are thankful for on a slip of paper and drop it in the slit on top of the box. On Thanksgiving Day, we will open the box. Throughout the day, we will take out a few slips of paper and read what people were thankful for.
This turns Thanksgiving into a whole month of thankfulness and I hope it will help us remember all of the wonderful things that happened this month. I hope some of you will make a thankful box, too.

Fall Craft – Make Leaf Creatures

kthomas — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:07:45 +0000

We were playing outside yesterday and picked up a bunch of pretty leaves. I thought one of them looked sort of like a fish head, so we started making leaf creatures with them. We used glue on both sides of the leaves to kind of preserve them. I don’t know if it will work, though. I guess only time will tell.

To make your own leaf creatures, all you need is imagination, white craft glue, leaves, googly eyes and construction paper to glue the critters to. This seems like a really good craft idea for Thanksgiving, since a maple leaf looks kind of like a turkey tail.

Update: After we made our projects, I was looking for other fall craft ideas for Thanksgiving and came across an entire book on making leafy critters:

Look What I Did with a Leaf! (Naturecraft)

Autumn Centerpiece – Mini Pumpkins

kthomas — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:20:40 +0000

I saw a little toy truck filled with apples on someone’s blog recently and thought it looked adorable. When I saw these mini pumpkins today, I couldn’t resist picking up a few to make a similar little display for Thanksgiving. I think it would make the perfect autumn centerpiece for a small table or a decoration for the sideboard. I need to scatter a few artificial leaves around to finish it off, but I have to find them first. I think I took them to the library last year so the kids could have the leaves “falling” around them during storytime.

Pumpkin Place Setting Holder

kthomas — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:30:40 +0000

I designed a pumpkin place setting holder for Halloween or Thanksgiving dinner that I thought I’d share with you. If you are making them for Halloween, you may want to try making faces on the pumpkins to turn them into Jack O Lanterns. To make these, simply cut a pumpkin shape out of scrapbooking paper and cut an identically shaped lower half out of the same paper. I made the top edge of mine jagged to resemble the way a jack o lantern’s top edge is traditionally carved. Place the half pumpkin on top of the whole one, right sides facing up. Punch holes around the edges and lace them up with a coordinating piece of yarn.
By the way, if you leave the ends of the yarn long to create a handle, these can be treat bags for a party, instead.

Thanksgiving Humor – Dressing Your Turkey for Thanksgiving

kthomas — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 15:19:23 +0000

I hesitate to call this an idea…but it’s pretty funny. Take a look at this conversation starter for Thanksgiving dinner by Simply Dumb.

Great Thanksgiving Book Choices

kthomas — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:32:19 +0000

The Pilgrim’s First Thanksgiving

All New Crafts for Thanksgiving

Swamp Monsters Don’t Chase Wild Turkeys

Thanksgiving – Wacky Things Kids are Thankful for

A Turkey for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving on Thursday

Five Silly Turkeys

Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving

And for Mom:

Thanksgiving by Janet Evonovich