Make Thanksgiving More Affordable and Fun

Inexpensive Thanksgiving

Wondering how you can make Thanksgiving Day more affordable and fun? Although funds may be short, there are still creative ways for your homeschooling family to inexpensively enjoy this blessed holiday. For those homeschooling families who are struggling to make ends meet, here's a complete breakdown on a Thanksgiving holiday celebration that will make your family "give thanks":

Food - What would Thanksgiving Day be without all the fixings? Instead of trying to cook the entire meal yourself this year, mirror the Pilgrims' and Indians' first Thanksgiving meal and stretch your food budget by asking each of your guests to bring a salad, vegetable, or dessert. Also, save more by shopping Thanksgiving grocery ad sales, avoiding convenience foods, and cooking from scratch.

To get the house cleaned and decorated and everything cooked with the least amount of stress, change your regular homeschool schedule for the week. Enjoy a week of home economics classes and have fun teaching your children how to make homemade bread, pies, and salads. For delicious, time-tested recipes, check out your church's cookbook or ask older women in the congregation for their Thanksgiving favorites. Save time and energy cooking by baking more than one thing at the same time. (Most pies, muffins, biscuits, and other freshly baked goods can stand some variation in temperature and still turn out fine!)

Decorations - Save money and decorate from nature. Instead of buying honeycomb paper turkeys, pilgrims, and Indians or an expensive arrangement from the flower shop, take a nature hike in your backyard, park, or local game reserve with your homeschoolers and find colorful leaves to press and scatter over the tablecloth. Pussy willows, cattails, milkweed pods, pampas grass, and even twigs look beautiful in a vase, especially if there are berries on the branches. When attractively arranged, a bowl of fruit, Indian corn, gourds, and pumpkins can also serve as your centerpiece. For a simple yet more sophisticated look, lay a plain center table runner in golden, ruby red, burnt orange, or russet fall colors. Strew the runner with acorn nuts, pine cones, or several small sprigs of dried herbs or fall flowers like sage and mums.

Have an extra children's table to decorate? Cover the whole table with white butcher paper and let your children draw their own Thanksgiving images with autumn-colored crayons and markers. You can also draw outlines of Thanksgiving items (leaves, pumpkins, etc.) and have your children color them. (You may want to use two layers of butcher paper in case markers bleed through).

Entertainment - Although football fans would argue the fact, there's more to do on Thanksgiving than just watching the NFL or a college football game. Turn off the TV and enjoy these old-fashioned, inexpensive games that make lasting memories with your children:

"Pin the Gobbler on the Turkey"
Blindfold and spin each player several times. See who can pin the gobbler the closest on a turkey.

"Thankerchief"
Arrange all the players in a circle and pass a handkerchief ("thankerchief") around as everyone recites this poem:

Thankerchief, thankerchief, around you go
Where you'll stop, nobody knows.
But when you do, someone must say,
What they are thankful for this day.

The child left holding the "thankerchief" after the poem ends must say one thing for which he is thankful. The game continues to be played until everyone gets a turn.

"Where Is Mr. Turkey?"
One child is the hunter and the other players are helpers. While the hunter leaves the room, the helpers hide a small, toy turkey. With a mission to find the turkey, the hunter then returns into the room. Helpers give clues to the turkey's location by "gobbling." If the hunter isn't close, the helpers gobble very quietly, but when the hunter gets closer, the helpers gobble more and more loudly until Mr. Turkey is found! You'll want to have the video camera for this game!

"Thanksgiving Twenty Questions"
Have fun and review your Thanksgiving history facts from Alpha Omega Publications' LIFEPAC 8th Grade History & Geography Unit 2 Worktext with this game. One player chooses someone or something related to Thanksgiving and says, "I am thinking of a person, place, or thing." The other players try to guess who or what it is by asking the first player no more than twenty questions that can only be answered by "yes," "no," or "I don't know."

"Thanksgiving Day Word Find"
Using a related Thanksgiving word like "Cornucopia," "Mayflower," or "Thanksgiving," find as many smaller words as possible within a set amount of time. Example: Mayflower - fear, ear, owe, fly, flow, flare, lay, low; Cornucopia - cop, corn, pin, no, arc, car, nip.

What are your plans this Thanksgiving?

Share This Article

Comments(3 comments)

KRISTINA F 11/06/2008 04:59:45

This is great! It really puts into perspective that we don\'t need to run to the store and spend money we don\'t have just to make memories.

VICKILYNN H 11/06/2008 06:48:59

Shalom,

A simple Thanksgiving tradition we do is we ask each of the family members to write out on 10 small strips of paper, things they are thankful for - one per strip of paper. They do not sign their name. (We help the smaller ones by writing what they dictate).

All the paper strips go into a basket which is passed from person to person during the Thanksgiving meal. The person who draws the strip of paper reads what it says and everyone at the table tries to guess who wrote it. We all yell out the answer to see who guesses correctly first. Once the thanksgiving is received and the author identified, the basket goes to the next person and the tradition is repeated until all the strips of paper are gone.

Then, Father prays, mentioning some of the things we are thankful for that our family wrote. It is a blessed fun time. For free.

In Messiah Yeshua,

Vickilynn Haycraft

Micah 6:8

NANCY W 11/06/2008 08:46:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

We collect pine cones and the kids make pine cone turkeys. They use construction paper, cut into \"tail feather\" shapes, to glue on the back of the pine cone. They use toothpicks as \"legs\" on the front. The kids use their imaginations to create the turkey\'s \"face\", using construction paper, or other arts & craft materials that are available. Depending upon the age of the kids, they may also use glue and glitter to make the turkeys \"shine.\" We use these to decorate our tables.

We also make napkin rings from construction paper. The kids write something for which they are thankful on the strips of paper (similar to the previous posting by Vickilynn) and decorate them. They glue the ends together and put the napkins in.

One last thing we have done: The kids make bookmarks from construction paper for each of our family members. They write the grandparent, aunt, uncle, etc. name on one side and decorate the other side. On either side, they write something in their own words about giving thanks.


Blog Categories


Homeschool eNews


Want more information?


We're available right now!

Call 1-800-622-3070

CHAT NOW Schedule a CALL BACK Free GETTING STARTED GUIDE Email us a MESSAGE