Keep the kids (big and small) entertained and happy with these great ideas.
Kids Table Decor
Just because you have a bunch of tiny humans visiting doesn’t mean you should skip making their eating place fun. The blog Sweet Metel Moments has a great post about decorating a kids table – including free printables for crayon bags, place cards, and centerpiece options. What’s great is when the kids make a mess you just toss everything in the trash.
Things to Do
Keep the troops occupied while you’re putting the finishing touches on the feast.
Thanksgiving Mad Libs
We found a ton of Thanksgiving themed mad libs printables. Here are a few of our favorites:
Turkey Dinner Thanksgiving Mad Libs for Kids Family Trip
Set up a Photo Booth
This is a popular option for many families because of so many cool apps and posting sites. These cute props from TheDatingDivas.com are perfect to capture some precious holiday moments with all the kids in your family.
Thanksgiving Coloring Sheets
You can’t go wrong with coloring, and these free coloring sheets are easy to print and put out with crayons.
Parade Bingo
Super cute and fun! Print out this bingo game and it encourages kids to watch the event from start to finish while you work on dinner.
Kid Friendly Snacks
A smart hostess will have some good snacks – especially for the little ones. Here are just a few cute examples:
Fruit Turkey
From ClearandScentsible.com such a fun idea. Take sliced fruit and a pear and create a turkey fruit platter – even better have everything cut up and let the kids create it for you! That was you keep them occupied, fed, and in the Thanksgiving spirit.
Blessing Mix
There was also this sweet idea for “Blessing Mix” from I Have No Greater Joy Blog. Here’s how you make this fun mix:
– Take bugles, pretzels, candy corn, seeds, fruit, M&M’s, and Hershey’s Kisses and mix them up. Then you can use the printables they provide or type the meaning of what each item represents for Thanksgiving:
- Bugles represent the cornucopia, a horn of plenty
- Pretzels represent arms folded in thanks and prayer
- Candy Corn reminds us that during the first winter, the Pilgrims were allowed only a few kernels of corn per day because food was so scarce
- Seeds are promise of a future harvest if they are planted and well tended
- Fruit is a reminder of the harvest gifts from the land
- M&M’s are for memories of those who came before us
- Hershey’s Kiss is a reminder of the love of family and friends that sweeten our lives
You can put in individual bags – think a treat for the road home. Or use this instead of traditional snack mix. And again this is a good activity for the kids to do so that you can have a discussion of what Thanksgiving really means.