Isn’t Thanksgiving the best holiday? No expectations other than sitting around visiting with friends and family. We have tried to make it all about bonding with family by starting some fun family Thanksgiving traditions.
Thanksgiving is my favorite especially because it isn’t about gifts. It is about being with the people we love and eating some delicious food. My mom and aunt cook us a delicious meal while the rest of the extended family play on the beach. The other nights during our weekend together, the rest of the families all take turns cooking.
Here are 5 fun family thanksgiving traditions:
- Have Kids Decorate Gingerbread Houses – The kits that come with the house already glued together are by far the best deal. Buy them at Walmart, they are usually $10. Don’t waste time building the house, let the kids get to the good part, the decorating with candy and icing! I also purchase extra candy to decorate the house in addition to the candy that comes in the kit. I buy holiday MnMs and gum drops. The kids love the bonding time. We do it every year but this was an especially great activity one year when the weather was bad.
- TableTopics Family – a game that starts great conversations. You don’t have to play around a table. This is great to use in the kitchen while preparing the meal. That is when the best conversations happen, right? We aren’t formal about this at all, we just randomly pick a card and use it to start some fun conversations.
- Puzzles and Boardgames – 2 years ago my sister pulled out a 1,000 piece puzzle. We all sorta groaned because we thought we weren’t puzzle people. Turns out, we are! It was fun to work on for a couple of days. Every night after dinner 1-2 people would start working on it and before long everyone was sitting around the table. We put it on a coffee table since we do large ones that we can’t put it away to eat on a table.
- Turkey Trot – My cousins started doing this a few years ago and last year my 8 year olds joined the crew. I like to cheer from the sidelines but they have a lot of fun doing it.
- Movie night – Find old family movies that everyone enjoys. A few that I am thinking of are Home Alone, Annie and Sound of Music. These are also great to order the DVD and bring as a hostess gift if you are invited to someones house for dinner.
I want to encourage you to be the one that starts the game. Everyone groans at first when you pull out the board game and say, “Hey, Everyone. Let’s Play.” But everyone is thankful afterwards that you pulled them away from the separate iPads and TVs to have fun together.
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what is a turkey trot??
I love decorating gingerbread houses! I hope to do one again this year and go all out with snowmen and fancy decorating!
Fantastic post! We do kids crafts, cook, football, and a walk around the neighborhood after we eat. I would like to add some of yours to ours!
My boys usually play football with their cousins too.
One of these years I’m going to do the turkey trot! Such a fun tradition and love how you can do it in the morning, then enjoy the rest of the day eating turkey and being with fam!
I love Thanksgiving, it is seriously one of my favorite holidays! I love the food friends and family!!
Me too!
We’ve always done a gingerbread house for Christmas but never for Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s a great new tradition for my little family. My daughter certainly loves it during Christmas.
I don’t know why we started at Thanksgiving versus Christmas…funny that we think of it as a Thanksgiving tradition. 🙂
What a fun idea to decorate gingerbread houses on Thanksgiving! It’s such a nice time to spend time with family, too!
Board games have always been a time honored tradition with my family! I’m so happy to hear others do the same!I’ll be suggesting the gingerbread houses this year. Too cute.
We love the gingerbread houses and are starting to do more games.
We say what we are thankful for! I hope to teach my toddler this year and maybe introduce him to the family tradition. Love this holiday.
Our tradition is watching the parade! These are great ideas to start this year!
That’s a great tradition.
What fab traditions! It is great that you spend time as a family and I love the table top and games idea! We do a lot of that at Christmas as well, traditions are so much fun!
On Thanksgiving, we go to my great aunt’s house for a big family dinner. Then we come home and pull out the Christmas tree and other holiday decorations. We put everything up while watching the classic Frosty and Rudolph cartoons!
I love that tradition! Sounds fun and Frosty is my favorite!
I love the tradition of gingerbread house making in the family! What a great way to get into the Christmas spirit with the little ones. 🙂
We want to try a turkey trot this year because it would be a fun morning activity. I like the idea of puzzles!
All of these sound like such great ideas. We have never done a turkey trot but that seems like my kids would love it.
I love traditions! My husband and I don’t have any children so we just have a few traditions together that we like to do but I know what I want to do once we have our littles. 🙂
These are all great traditions! I can’t wait for Thanksgiving! I haven’t seen my family in months so I’m really excited!
I love seeing family too.
Those are all so lovely. It’s good to have a tradition, it’s a great way to teach values and create memories with the kids. I love starting new traditions and these are spot on!
Traditions around the holidays are such a great thing to have and teach your kids. I am looking forward to spending time with both sides of family during Thanksgiving!
I love Thanksgiving! All the delicious food, family time, and no presents – perfect holiday 🙂 These are some fun ideas to incorporate into our day!
I would love to have my kids decorate gingerbread houses for Thanksgiving! I love starting new holiday traditions!
Me too!
Im surprised the Thanksgiving parade isnt on the list. Thats one of my personal traditions and one day I want to go to NYC and experience it for myself.
My Sister In Law always makes a gingerbread house with my nephews for Thanksgiving. This year, I am hoping to make one with my own sons.
This is the one craft that my boys like to do…maybe because they eat as much candy as they use to decorate. 🙂
Great ideas! I love thanksgiving too. I don’t think I could pull the guys away from the football game to play a board game so we may have to make that the “girls” tradition!
I love Turkey Trots! They’re the best thing to make you feel ok about the entire pie you’re going to consume later haha!