This post is a part of the Fantabulous Fall Favorites blog chain put together by a great group of bloggers. The theme this week is Thanksgiving. Be sure to check out all the great ideas shared at the end of this post!
Our typical Thanksgiving dinner is turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and cranberries. One year, I tried to change things up a little. I made cheesy garlic mashed potatoes, but the potatoes weren’t the only thing that got mashed. It turns out good old-fashioned mashed potatoes is all that cuts it in our family. No fancy gourmet stuff for us. You’d think I tried to poison them or something! I still hear about it almost every Thanksgiving.
After the potatoes fiasco I tried something different. I saw the idea in Family Fun Magazine (this was way before Pinterest) and I thought it could be the perfect addition to our Thanksgiving tradition. My mom provided the vinyl harvest-theme tablecloth, I brought Sharpies in multiple colors, and we were ready to write. Each family member wrote what they were thankful for that year right on the tablecloth. We gently wiped the tablecloth off after dinner and stored it for the next Thanksgiving. We’ve done it ever since…well, except the years we can’t remember where the tablecloth is stored.
Each year when we put it on the table, I love looking at it and reading what we wrote over the years. It makes me smile to see the outline of P’s foot before he could tell us what he was thankful for. That simple tablecloth captured my dad and brother’s rotten sense of humor, my husband’s serious side and my mom and sister-in-law’s big hearts. It’s captured my family.
What are your Thanksgiving traditions?
Interested in more amazing Thanksgiving ideas? Check out these posts!
Creative K Kids – Printables: Verses About Thankfulness with Activity Ideas
Bee Tree Studios – Thankful For Free Journal Cards
Gift of Curiosity – Thanksgiving Learning Activities and Giveaway!
Still want more? Head to our Fantabulous Fall Favorites Pinterest Board!
My Mom made a tablecloth for our wedding guests to write messages on, but I never thought of doing it for Thanksgiving, that would be great! Thanks for sharing this with us 🙂
That’s a great idea for a wedding!
This is such a cool thing to do. We haven’t really done any family traditions since we created our ‘blended’ family and holidays are always a jumble. Imagine getting this tablecloth out when your kids are grown with kids of their own.
What a sweet tradition, won’t it be fun when you have GRANDKIDS and they can look and see what their mom and dad wrote?!!
I did see this done once on Pinterest or someplace, and I think it is such a neat idea! We have thanksgiving at my mom’s house, and she has her own traditions and way of doing the table, so I don’t think it will go for there, but maybe at home sometime we can do it! Is the tablecloth getting rather filled up now?
It’s pretty full, but we can keep squeezing our thanks in. One day we’ll need to start volume 2 🙂
That is a really unique and sweet tradition. I still get Family Fun magazine and it still has great ideas! Like Missy, since I married my husband two years ago, he, I and the 7yo don’t have any good Thanksgiving traditions yet. This year our family is going out to a little lake cabin for Thanksgiving, so maybe that will be it. Thanksgiving by the lake 🙂
Thanksgiving by the lake sounds perfect!
This is so cute and I love the idea!!! Maybe next year when my boys are a little older we could start something like this! Thank you for the great idea! I will pin it so I don’t forget!
You can start now! When P was too little to write or talk, we traced his foot or hand and dated it. Then when he started to talk in sentences, we wrote down what he was thankful for.
I love this idea! When my kids are older, we will definitely have this idea!
I’m glad to hear you like it!
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