Thanksgiving...Making The Kids' Table Festive!

[CM.Ult.Cookbook]

Remember being a kid at Thanksgiving?  Here's how I remember it.....

Mom's cooking up a storm...the guests are coming, the guests are coming!  She's got out her best dinnerware - even polished up the heirloom silver.  The table's beautiful, the centerpiece is gorgeous, and everything looks and smells so inviting!  The guests arrive...dinner is served....but wait...

"Ah ah ah," the grown up guests say to me as I approach the elegant table.  "The kiddie table is over there...." and I'm directed to the old, dingy card table in the corner of the room....banished, with the rest of the children, to scavenge what's left of the feast....

Okay, okay, we got to eat real food, it wasn't all that bad...but do you know what I think might have made Thanksgiving a little more special for me and the rest of the kids?  Dressing up the kiddie table - make us feel important!  After all...we weren't so hard to please. 

While sturdy paper plates, plastic cups and plastic serving-ware will always be acceptable to kiddos (recommended in fact - who wants to spend the evening cleaning up broken glass?  And the fewer dishes to wash later, the better....), A sheet of butcher paper can be decorated by the kids with crayons, markers, or stickers and used as a tablecloth.  Laminated, decorated construction paper art makes great place-mats.  For an nice extra touch to make kids feel extra important, how about setting little folded name place-tags at each seat, the kids can decorate with stickers and drawings.  How about this cute, festive centerpiece: 

It's a Craft Stick Turkey Greeter!

This project is easy to make and uses minimal supplies. Poke the turkey's stick into an upside-down paper cup or hang on the edge of a flower pot.

What you'll need:

• 10 jumbo craft sticks
• 2 medium wiggle eyes
• Miniature craft stick
• Small scrap of paper
• Sharpie marker
• Felt (white, black, goldenrod, and red)
• Acrylic paint (brown, orange, yellow, and red)
• Scissors
• Hot glue or white craft glue

How to make it:

1. Paint the jumbo craft sticks: four brown, two yellow, two red and one orange. Leave one unpainted.
2. Cut one-half an egg shape (body) from the goldenrod felt, approximately 2 1/2 x 3 inches.
3. Cut a small elongated triangle from the goldenrod felt for the beak.
4. From red felt, cut an elongated heart shape, about one-inch long.
5. From black felt, cut a simple top hat and a small rectangle for the buckle.
6. From the white felt, cut a small rectangle for the buckle a little bit larger than the black one.
7. Lay the plain jumbo craft stick on the table. This will be your base stick.
8. Starting from the right, glue craft sticks into a fan shape, stacking one on top of the other as you go. Our pattern goes brown, yellow, red, brown, yellow, red, orange, brown.
9. You should have one brown craft stick left over. This is your turkey's body. Glue it straight up and down onto the middle of the fan shape.
10. Glue goldenrod body in place. Next, glue the gobbler (red heart) just above the top of the body.
11. Glue the beak in place just above the gobbler.
12. Glue wiggle eyes above the beak.
13. Glue hat onto top of head, then glue white rectangle on hat and black rectangle onto the white one, creating the buckle.
14. Write "Happy Thanksgiving" on a small piece of paper or construction paper. Glue to miniature craft stick, then glue craft stick to body.
15. Allow to dry completely.

Tips:

Some craft stores carry packages of colored craft sticks.

Put a fairly heavy rock in the center of a paper plate. Glue an upside down paper cup to over the top of the rock. When dry, insert the craft stick into the top of the cup for a fun Turkey Greeter holder.

Alternatively, you can use construction paper for the feathers so that your turkey lays flat. Use the "sign" for each guest's name and use as place holders for dinner!

What are some of your kids' Thanksgiving traditions, games, special recipes, or decorations?  Let's share some tips with each other!

Tags: thanksgiving, kids, kiddie table, decorations, centerpiece, craft, craft stick turkey greeter

Add A Comment

[babyboomer1977]

Nov. 13, 2009 at 11:45 AM

wow! that looks great! And yes i do remember thanksgiving when i was a kid! We had both grandparents over plus my dads cousin on his moms side of the family plus his aunt and uncle plus five of us kids and plus my mom and dad! The month of thanksgiving my mom and i would clean the house til it shined! And we also did a lot of shopping too! I was the one that helped her polish the good silver ware while my brothers helped my dad clean the yard up! And my mom would wash and dry and iron her good table cloth and than we would go to the flower store to buy the center pieace for the table! Man where they great memories! I sure miss them!