Holiday Season Kickoff

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Thanksgiving is a wonderful opportunity to teach your children about being thankful. Below are some ideas to educate your children on how to appreciate the blessings in their lives.

Thanksgiving Tree
This is another take on the idea above and works really well if you have several kids in the family. Get each child to trace their hand on yellow, red, or brown construction paper. Cut out the hand shapes and write (or have the child write) what they are thankful for on the hand shape. Cut a tree trunk shape out of brown construction paper. Glue it on a large piece of poster board. Let the kids add their hand shapes as leaves above the tree trunk, turning it into a beautiful fall colored tree.

Thankful Paper Chain
Another way to remind your children of their blessings is to create a paper chain. This is similar to a regular paper chain – where you cut strips of paper and connect them together as loops, but there’s one difference. You write on the strips of paper before you connect them. Write the things you are thankful for with your children. For instance, “Grandma plays games with me” or “My teacher is nice.” The fun part of this activity is to make the chain as long as possible – showing all your blessings. If you’d like to keep this up during Christmas, just use green and white paper.

Thankful Book
This idea is similar to the others, except it’s more of a keepsake. Purchase a photo album or scrapbook kit and make a “blessings” theme. Add photos of loved ones, including stories about why they are special to you. Also, include pages of your favorite foods, favorite stories, favorite movies and all the other things that make you happy. Any time your kids feel down, you can open your blessing book to see all the reasons you have to be happy – and thankful for the blessings in your life.

Giving Thanks Placemats
The goal of this craft is to create a collage filled with drawings and pictures of all the things your children are thankful for. Cut photos from magazines, or print some photos from your computer. Older children can write captions under the photos or draw their own. Be sure to put the child’s name and the year on it.

If you make this collage from two standard letter size pieces of construction paper taped side-by-side, you can take the completed collage to a copy shop when you’re done and have it laminated. It then becomes a placemat that you can use every Thanksgiving for years to come.

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You can make your Thanksgiving table special by making your centerpiece  the main focus on your holiday table. Below are some ideas to help you create your own memorable Thanksgiving table. You can also use these ideas when decoarating your mantel.

Floral Display of Abundance
Make a dried floral arrangement from fall flowers. Gather some of the plastic sticks that the florists use to hold notecards. Stick them into the floral display, but put photos of the things you are thankful for in them, instead. Or, if you don’t have photos, just write words on notecards and display them in the floral arrangement. Some words you may start with are “family”, “friends”, “food”, “laughter”.

Carve A Pumpkin
Yes, you heard right, carve a pumpkin. Of course you don’t want to go with the traditional jack-o-lantern design here. Instead carve some geometrical designs, or some flowers, leaf-shapes etc. on your hollowed out pumpkin. Add a candle inside the carved pumpkin and light it just before your guests arrive.

Pumpkin Candle Holders
Get some small pumpkins and hollow out enough room on the top of the pumpkin to stick a candle in it. Group of few of these candle holders together for a festive center piece. Finish your candle arrangement with a few pieces of native corn placed around your pumpkin candle holders. Give the arrangement more dimension by using different size pumpkins and candles. Use some scented candles to give your room that Holiday smell.
Are you feeling inspired yet by all these ideas? Dig through your Thanksgiving supplies or take a stroll through your local craft store and you will come up with your own versions of these suggestions, or even a creation all of your own.

Fall Vegetables
Begin with a pumpkin and gourds. Loosely arrange them on the table or mantle.  Set a natural-color candle on each side of your display. Finish your free form art center piece by sprinkling colorful fall leaves all over and around your center pieces. Make sure they are not too close to the candles, of course.

Fall Leaves
Simply find a large glass bowl and fill it with beautiful fall leaves. Set a candle on each side of the bowl to showcase the leaves. Then, cut leaf shapes out of construction paper and use them as place cards. Of course you could also press small leaves, and glue them to a plain white place card.

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Thanksgiving is an opportunity for some families to cook turkey just so that they have some left overs. Eating leftover turkey is fine but sometimes, we get bored with the same old taste. Below are some healthy ways to prepare and enjoy your left over turkey:

Sandwiches
This is a popular favorite. Simply slather mayonnaise on your favorite bread and add turkey. Enjoy! Of course, you can make this sandwich fancier by using toasted garlic bread, or adding some seasonings to the mayonnaise. You can quickly whip up some gourmet style mayo by adding some of the packet ranch dressing mix to it.

Instead of regular old sliced bread, make turkey sandwiches with fresh or chiabata bread for a different taste.

Open Faced Turkey Sandwich
Start with some really good toast. Rub a little garlic or butter on it if you’d like. Then, lay slices of turkey on it and cover with gravy. Heat up some left over stuffing and stick it in the toaster oven or your regular oven to give it a nice little crust and dinner is ready.

Turkey and Rice Soup
Use the leftover bones from the turkey and throw them in a large stock pot. Cover them with plenty of water and add some onion, celery, carrot and salt and pepper. Bring it to a boil and boil for about 45 min. Strain out the liquid, return it to the pot, add some rice and leftover pieces of turkey. Add any vegetables you like as well and cook until the rice and veggies are tender.

Turkey Enchiladas
You can fix turkey enchiladas just like you would chicken enchiladas with your favorite sauce, tortillas and cheese. Just shred the turkey, and heat it with some cheese and enchilada sauce. Spoon the mixture on flour or corn tortillas and roll them up. Place the tortilla rolls in a greased baking dish and top with more enchilada sauce and plenty of cheese. Then bake them up until the cheese is nice and bubbly. They are a great way to use turkey in something that has a completely different flavor.

Turkey Wraps
Tired of turkey sandwiches? Use a tortilla instead. Pile on lettuce, raw veggies and plenty of turkey. Top with some ranch dressing and roll it up for a portable lunch or snack. Another fun idea is to mix shredded turkey with a little mayonnaise, some chopped apple, grapes and a few walnuts for a turkey salad wrap.

Turkey Salad
Make a gorgeous, colorful salad, using all the vegetables you can find in the store. Add sliced turkey to the top and add your favorite salad dressing. Or make a turkey Caesar salad with romaine lettuce, turkey, parmesan cheese, croutons and Caesar dressing.

Turkey Chili
Shred your leftover turkey and cook it along with beans, tomatoes and your favorite chili seasonings. Of course you can also toss in any leftover veggies like corn or green beans and cook them right along with the rest of the chili ingredients. Serve with cornbread.

There you go … a ton of ideas for your leftover turkey. Enjoy!

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The turkey is usually the center of attraction during any Holiday gathering. The holiday meal can be easily ruined by an overcooked or dry turkey. Roast turkey is not something we cook every week, it’s not easy to pull off the perfect turkey…unless you follow some simple tips listed  below.

Start with a quality turkey. Yes, you can find off brand turkeys for quite a bit less, but keep in mind that a lot of the pounds you will be paying for will be saltwater that was injected in the turkey. Go ahead and buy the good stuff – You’ll be glad you did when you get all the praises for that delicious bird you fixed.

Thaw the turkey slowly in the fridge. Keep in mind during your planning stage that this will take several days. Doing this instead of submerging the bird in water is much gentler on the meat, resulting in a more tender finished product and is also much safer.

When you are ready to cook your turkey, remove the neck, giblets and anything else that may be stuffed in the chest cavity of your bird. Take some paper towels and pat your turkey dry.

Set it in a large roasting pan. If you prefer the breast meat on the dry end, place the turkey on its back. For moister breast meat, turn the turkey breast down.

Cut up a peeled onion, 3 stalks of celery and a few carrots. Big chunks are fine, since these vegetables are just for flavor. Stick them in the body cavity. They will infuse the bird with flavor as it cooks.

Melt a cup of butter in the microwave. Use a turkey baster to baste the turkey with butter. Don’t use all of it, just enough to get your turkey covered. Sprinkle the turkey with salt, pepper and any other seasonings you like.

Cook the turkey in a 325 degree oven. Baste it every 30 – 45 minutes with the juices that collect in the bottom of the roasting pan.

Here are some general guidelines for how long your bird should cook:

8 to 12 lbs. 2 ¾ to 3 hrs.
12 to 14 lbs. 3 to 3 ¾ hrs.
14 to 18 lbs. 3 ¾ to 4 ¼ hrs.
18 to 20 lbs. 4 ¼ to 4 ½ hrs.
20 to 24 lbs. 4 ½ to 5 hrs.

Or cook until temperature on meat thermometer reaches 180 degrees (check in the thickest part, and in a couple different places) Don’t overcook or it will be dry, but do make sure it is done.

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Thanksgiving may not be as popular as Halloween or Christmas but, spending time making fun and easy Thanksgiving crafts with your little kids can make Thanksgiving equally fun as the previously mentioned holidays. Below are a couple of Thanksgiving projects you can complete with your kids:

Turkey Apple:

Materials needed for each “turkey apple”:
1 apple
6 toothpicks
1 large marshmallow
5 miniature marshmallows
some raisins
1 piece of candy corn

Directions:

Set the apple stem up on a flat surface. Stick a toothpick in the top part of one side of the apple. Add the large marshmallow to the top of the toothpick. Decorate the face of the turkey with two raisins as eyes and stick the candy corn in upside down into the marshmallow to make the beak.

Thread each of the remaining toothpicks with 3 raisins, and then top it off with one of the miniature marshmallows. These will be the tail feathers of your turkey. Stick the 4 toothpicks evenly spaced on the opposite side of the top of the apple.

Turkey Hand/Foot Print

Materials:
brown, red, orange & yellow construction paper
pencil
scissors
glue

Directions:
First, outline your child’s foot once on a piece of brown construction paper. Then, outline her hands twice on red or yellow construction paper. Cut the outlined shapes. Cut a beak out of orange construction paper. The foot shape will be the body of the turkey, while the hand shapes will be the tail part of the turkey. glue the pieces together. You can then draw in eyes for the turkey.

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