Fun Thanksgiving Ideas

I thought I'd share with all of you some ideas to make your Thanksgiving day even more fun. Lots of family will be gathering this year to spend the holiday with my in-laws, so I found some games and activities for us to do before the turkey feast begins!

As usual, I found most of the things on the internet, so I will provide links where I can. For some things, the idea was found on the web, but I ended up having to make the documents in Microsoft Word. If you are interested in any of those, let me know and I can e-mail the document(s) to you.

My husband's family loves to play games, so I created some word games for us to play before we eat. I will put together small prizes for the winners - probably something simple like candy, gum etc. Here are the word games:

1.  Find a Thanksgiving Day word for each letter of the alphabet. I made this as a Word document. You could give a special prize to anyone who can come up with a word for the letter "X."

2.  Make as many words as you can using the letters from the words "Thanksgiving Day." I made this as a Word document.

3.  Put the Thanksgiving Day words in alphabetical order from A to Z. This is also a Word document I created. The words I used were:

• holiday
• feast
• harvest
• pilgrims
• corn
• Indians
• squash
• autumn
• family
• turkey
• pumpkin
• thankful

I think all three of these games will be lots of fun using a timer and only giving the players so much time to complete them!

4.  I created my own Thanksgiving Word Search using the puzzlemaker found here. There are lots of different puzzles you can create for free, like word search, crossword, etc. It takes you through step-by-step how to create the puzzle and was really easy.

5.  For the little ones, I printed out coloring pages of different Thanksgiving items like a turkey, pilgrim, pumpkin, indian boy/girl, cornucopia, etc. I found some good coloring pages here.  Don't forget crayons or markers.

I also wanted to do something special for my father-in-law who is suffering from lung cancer. I am going to have cardstock paper and markers available for all of the family to write messages for him about what he means to them. Then I will bind them all together for him to keep.

I saw the idea on Pinterest for Thankful Rolls, which would be another great idea for the family to do together. Here are the instructions:

Provide small slips of paper for all of the guests. As they arrive, have them write a thankful message on the piece of paper, wrap it in foil, then insert it in the crack of rolls before baking. They're like Thanksgiving fortune rolls!



I'm looking forward to a joyful Thanksgiving celebration with family, and hope you are too!