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Thanksgiving Party Supplies
When it comes to Thanksgiving, most people think of the basic staples to any Thanksgiving feast: pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and of course the turkey. Joining your family or friends for a night of great food and fantastic company can’t be beat, especially when you leave with your bellies full. Of course, this is all considering that the Thanksgiving party will be at someone else’s home, where you do not need to plan a thing but what sweater you will wear. Come to think of it, this year is your year to do the planning and after thinking about all the Thanksgiving party supplies you will need to provide, you are beginning to sweat more than a Thanksgiving turkey (pun intended)!
Wipe that drip off your brow, young party planner extraordinaire! Your Thanksgiving can be just as amazing as the day the Mayflower found land, or the time Uncle George actually stayed awake long enough to get a piece of pie. As momentous as those occasions were, your special party is going to be one in a million! But that turkey isn’t going to cut itself, so get excited, get thinking, and get planning!
Table Decorations
Your table decorations are going to do more than sit and be pretty—they are going to catch your guests’ eyes, make them look twice, and invite them to sit down and share a story or two with the little turkeys romping around the tablecloth. Of course, a white tablecloth is classic and keeps the table setting looking neat and clean. Either way, start forming ideas about what you want your table setting to look like.
For starters, do you want to use real tableware or Thanksgiving-inspired paper plates? Depending on how formal your occasion is, either of these will be a good idea. If you are going for a more traditional approach, use the real tableware. This includes cloth napkins and napkin rings, real silverware (not plastic), and glasses, for wine and other drinks.
Your place settings can include a place mat in a Thanksgiving decoration or a simple wicker mat, plate, bowl for salad (if you are serving salad), water glass, and wine glass. If you have children attending, you can set them up at their own table, with plastic cups instead of glasses and fun plates, utensils, and napkins instead of the “grown up” versions.
You should provide a seating arrangement for your guests, complete with place cards. The place cards can be made by you or if you have a child, you can make it a project for him. There are simple versions as well as more creative versions. For the simple version, all you need is a small square of paper. Fold the square in half to allow it to stand up by itself. You can decorate the card with the person’s name as well as some turkeys or pilgrim hats.
A more creative approach would be to make either cut out turkeys from sheets of paper, or make three-dimensional turkeys or pilgrim hats to put at each place. These are cute and fun and are something your guests will remember beyond the delicious food.
Decorations
You can tack orange, yellow, and white streamers around your house, from ceiling corner to ceiling corner, around stair banisters, from doorways, or even lay them across white tablecloths to make stripes and add a little bit of flavor to the traditional color. Balloons are great for a party area. You can tie them to stair banisters, or simply leave a few lingering around in a playroom to keep the children occupied.
Feel free to post pictures of turkeys, pilgrims, or Indian feathers around the house to make it more festive. Red, yellow, and orange maple leaves also make great decorations, for walls, for tables, or for gathering together to create a centerpiece. Burning a scented candle such as pumpkin pie or pumpkin spice, or even apple crisp, can really set the mood by filling the house with delicious scents.
You do not necessarily need to have a centerpiece for your table, but if you would like one, you can use flowers, leaves, or vegetables such as pumpkins, squash, or gourds to create a pleasant fall scene.
Children’s Activities
Even if you love the little rascals, having children at a holiday party can be energy draining. Instead of letting them run wild throughout the house, give them something constructive to do. You can let them color in a room with Thanksgiving coloring books, or see who can draw the best turkey, or send them on a turkey hunt throughout the house. Simply hide paper turkeys in areas of the house and send them off on the hunt!
Another activity that the children will simply adore is to make pilgrim hats. Big black ones with buckles for boys and white bonnets for girls should do. You can make these out of construction paper and use tape to tape the ends together. It is a simple, clean, and fun activity that will keep those children out of your hair, at least long enough for you to cook that turkey!
Food
Ah, the feast. The Thanksgiving feast is one of those events that certain people look forward to each year. From the turkey to the gravy to the stuffing to the cranberry sauce to the sweet potatoes to the pumpkin pie—every bit as delicious as the year before—your Thanksgiving dinner will be great as long as you take the time to practice on those foods beforehand. Try cooking the stuffing a week earlier to make sure you have it down; bake a pumpkin pie early in the week to test out your skill; practice makes perfect and if you go into your Thanksgiving dinner blind, your food might cause your guests to cringe.
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