I don’t know about you, but we’re gearing up for Thanksgiving and I, for one, am excited to have a big celebration this year. We usually head to my in-laws for a huge feast filled with tons of cousins and lots of food. It’s always fun to see the kids running around and playing together (with Dakota chasing them around) and to get together for food and drinks. To me, it’s the kickoff of the holiday season, which I love and really, I love any excuse to dress up and celebrate, as you probably know if you’ve been following along here for awhile. While we don’t have a ton of Thanksgiving traditions, we do have a few things we do each year that make the day extra memorable and special for our kids.
I like to start Thanksgiving off with a special breakfast while we watch the Macy’s parade. Since we don’t typically host the holiday, I don’t have to do too much cooking, so whipping up a fun breakfast for just our immediate family is something I enjoy doing and then we all watch the parade on TV in our pajamas. I always say we’ll go into the city for it, but honestly, it just feels too overwhelming.
This year I’m considering adding a turkey trot to our Thanksgiving traditions. I feel like it’s such a great way to kick off the day and get in some movement before the day becomes about eating and drinking. Hoping there’s one in our area.
Every Thanksgiving, my in-laws kick things off with my favorite Thanksgiving tradition — a champagne toast once everyone arrives and before we head to the table for dinner. It’s such a fun way to welcome everyone and make the day feel a little extra special. It’s something I’m excited to bring to future gatherings I host (I may suggest adding some cranberries to the Christmas champagne toast this year for a festive touch).
Our Thanksgiving dinner is filled with all the usual thanksgiving fixings. Andrew always makes the mashed potatoes, his cousin carves the turkey, and I’ve started making my mom’s cranberry and goat cheese salad. It’s nice being able to bring a part of my Thanksgiving traditions to the dinner. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll share the recipe – it’s super easy and so good.
After dinner, we try to work off our food comas with some football on the field near my in-laws house before heading back home to stuff our faces again with pie, cookies and cake.
Then we usually watch football and have some more drinks before heading home stuffed and exhausted.
So all in all, our Thanksgiving traditions are pretty standard, but I love that they become parts of the holiday that our kids will look forward to and know go with this special day.
And then it’s Thanksgiving weekend, aka time to get ready for Christmas! Jk but not really. It’s crazy how the second Thanksgiving is over, it’s time to start gearing up for Christmas. (I actually don’t mind because Christmas happens to be my favorite holiday. Really the whole time between thanksgiving and Christmas with all the parties and decorations and cookies and present planning — I love it!)
The weekend after Thanksgiving, we usually kick off our holiday planning by getting a Christmas tree and finding where we stashed all the ornaments. I also try to squeeze in some shopping to take advantage of Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals to get some of my holiday gift shopping done. With parties and visitors and then our annual Christmas trip to Park City to ski, December is always busy so I like to take advantage of the long weekend to get things done.
What about your family? What Thanksgiving traditions are you excited for? Any we should incorporate into ours?
Check out Thanksgiving tablescape ideas, thanksgiving outfit ideas and Thanksgiving outfits for kids.
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