How to Add More Pizazz to Your Thanksgiving Celebration
Discover 5 Fresh ways to add more pizazz to your Thanksgiving celebration, including cooking methods, kid activities, centerpieces, and Family Day Friday.
CanCan Mom’s hundreds of creative Get-to-Do Lists, routines, schedules, and solutions all make motherhood easier and more fun! Recognizing that you “Get To Do” these things because you are blessed to have a family simply reminds you to Interact with love and laughter more often than impatience.
Have fun incorporating my unique Fast & Free Quick Steps into your daily life!
Moms Crushing It with CanCan Quick Steps
Every family has their own way of celebrating holidays. As Thanksgiving gets closer, it’s the perfect time to add a new twist to existing holiday rituals or start a brand new one this year. Here are five fresh ways you can make your family’s Thanksgiving holiday even more special:
- Switch up the Turkey and Fixings
- Send Thanksgiving Cards
- Send Thankful Letters
- Personalize your Tablescape
- Start a New Tradition on Black Friday
How can you add pizazz to your Thanksgiving Celebration?
The holiday season is probably the most popular time for family traditions. We all have busy lives, but keeping traditions is essential—and adding a new one now and then—helps maintain and strengthen your family bonds. So here are five fresh ways you can add some spark to your Thanksgiving celebration.
Tip 1: Switch up the Turkey and Fixings
Turkey and stuffing have long been the focal point of most Thanksgiving menus across the country. In a recent study by finder.com, according to a survey by the National Turkey Federation, an outstanding 88% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
The cost of turkeys in 2022 at Thanksgiving
- 46 million: Number of turkeys expected to be consumed on Thanksgiving Day
- 293 million: Number of Americans likely to be eating a turkey dinner
- 88%: Proportion of Americans to be feasting on Thanksgiving turkey
- $1.1 billion: Spend on turkeys for Thanksgiving in 2022
Gobble gobble!
If you’re like my family, you can’t wait for the heavenly aroma of the traditional roasted turkey on Thanksgiving Day—accompanied by the combination of stuffing/dressing homemade rolls, sweet potato casserole, and a succulent pumpkin pie.
However, this year, you might try an entirely new way to prepare Tom Turkey. We deep-fried ours in the backyard last year—one of the best turkeys we’ve ever eaten! Or try grilling it. Think of all that room you’ll save in your oven that day. In this article written by Tyler Wells Lynch, Ten Alternative Ways to Cook a Thanksgiving Turkey, you’ll find some tasty ways to get creative with your bird!
Even if you have a beloved stuffing recipe that’s been handed down for generations, you can kick it up a notch if you’re willing to think outside of the box—and if you do make stuffing right from the box, that’s okay too. Ever had truly crispy stuffing/dressing made in a waffle iron? Think how fun that will be for the young and the young at heart! Or cooking it in a Bundt pan for a more crispy surface on all sides for everyone at once?
In addition to deep-frying our turkey last Thanksgiving, we changed many of our side dishes, including my grandmother’s stuffing. Check out this list of innovative ways to prepare your stuffing this year in this article called Turkey Day Hacks, 7 Alternatives to Traditional Stuffing.
Tip 2: Send Thanksgiving Cards
Sending holiday cards is a tradition I’ve loved ever since I became a mother. I openly admit I enjoy sharing photos of my kids with anyone and everyone who would like to take an hour, I mean a few seconds, to see how my kids have grown.
When I started my family, we didn’t have the social media avenues available that we do now, so getting an actual photo card was really a treat for people.
Now, with Facebook and Instagram, our friends and family can enjoy our photographs instantly on a near-daily basis. That’s why I decided to switch it up a few years ago and send my holiday cards out for Thanksgiving or New Year’s—whenever I had more time available.
There’s something pretty special about expressing gratitude to the important people in your life, so why not let them know during the wonderful season of Thanksgiving? Get your kids involved in the design and wording!
Two other great reasons to send Thanksgiving cards are that the people receiving them will have more time to enjoy your card because they won’t be bombarded with dozens of other cards, and you will free up time when the Christmas rush hits!
Tip 3: Send Thankful Letters
With our ability to shoot off an e-mail or text in an instant, the days of sending an old-fashioned letter are long gone. I’m not talking about sending or receiving a greeting card. I’m talking about a piece of lovely handwritten stationery with a greeting such as “Dear Nana,” etc.
When was the last time you opened your mailbox and found something personal waiting for you?
Thanksgiving is a great time for everyone in the family to send just one letter to someone they care about. This could be a teacher, a babysitter, a boss, or the pizza guy you order from every Friday night. Help your kids express some of the things they are thankful for about this person.
It doesn’t have to be long. Something short and sweet, such as
“Dear Molly,
I feel lucky that you care for my sister and me after school. You make doing homework fun. Thanks for being our babysitter. We love you and look forward to being with you.
Love, Katie.”
Tip4: Level Up Your Thanksgiving Celebration With a Personalized Tablescape
Surprise your family and guests with a personalized tablescape for Thanksgiving.
You can create fun and whimsical photo napkins through online sites such as Vistaprint.
You can make placemats from photos you have taken of your guests and family throughout the year to surprise and delight them—they are also a fun take-home gift.
One year, I took an ordinary centerpiece I had gotten from my local florist and inserted photos of my family members who were joining us that year for dinner.
This year, I’ve purchased mini journals that will be placed at each guest’s seat (including my eight children) so that we can begin our feast by taking a few moments to record some things we are thankful for. That may seem a bit corny, but my hope is that my guests will continue this practice long after the last turkey sandwich has been eaten.
Check out this fun article that shares tons of ideas for creative tablescapes: 65 Beautiful Thanksgiving Table Settings to Impress Your Guests
These are just a few ideas to add some personal meaning and whimsy to your Thanksgiving table this year. And if you get your kids involved, their creativity can make these ideas even more special.
Tip 5: Start a New Tradition on Black Friday
For many Americans, the tradition of Black Friday is an important part of their Thanksgiving Holiday.
The term “Black Friday” was coined in the 1960s to mark the kickoff to the Christmas shopping season when the accountants told stores they were “in the black” (for profits, which used to start with back-to-school sales) as opposed to “in the red” (for losses in the earlier months).
Retailers draw large crowds by offering insane discounts on everything from toys to toasters. Also, limited quantities lured customers out at the crack of dawn (or before) to take advantage of those whacky deals.
If you’re not inclined to head to the mall at 4 a.m. to score big, why not create fun new ways to celebrate Black Friday at home instead?
Believe it or not, my kids and I used to participate in the Black Friday shopping madness. Once in a while, we got some neat buys, but we usually purchased things that were on sale just because they were on sale!
We stay home on Family Friday and use this bonus day to make our gingerbread houses for the holiday season. We start the day with a big, homemade breakfast of omelets and blueberry pancakes and then get to work. That day, we also make and freeze many of our Christmas cookies.
Some families make it a “couch and movie” day to just lounge in PJs and watch their favorite holiday movies. For others, they begin their holiday decorating. After all that turkey, it’s also a great day to take a brisk walk in the park or a hiking trail and enjoy fresh air together as a family.
Before Thanksgiving this year, sit down with your family and come up with a list of ideas for how you can spend Black Friday as a family. It will be something fun to look forward to in addition to those yummy leftover turkey sandwiches.
Are you changing up your Thanksgiving plans or traditions? For all kinds of mom-centered creative ideas, visit me on Instagram at CanCanMomCB or on Pinterest at theCanCanMom. If you have questions or suggestions, email me at cheryl@cancanmom.com or leave a comment in the box below.
