Coolest Thanksgiving Party Ideas
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The Thanksgiving party ideas below will come in handy when you're preparing to host the next Thanksgiving party.
The Thanksgiving holiday is a day of giving thanks for blessings – big and small, and of course – to feast! It’s great fun to drum up a Thanksgiving Party and gather in friends and family together.
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What you serve at your Thanksgiving will greatly depend on if this is a home party with family and friends, each family having their own traditions, or if it’s a school party, which is a party for children. Although they are both Thanksgiving celebrations, they each have their own type of décor, food activities and Thanksgiving party ideas
We have tried to give Thanksgiving party ideas and tips to both types of celebrations. We hope that you find this information helpful.
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Thanksgiving Party Ideas - Invitations:
Your Thanksgiving invitations can be in all kinds of Thanksgiving-related shapes - cornucopia, pumpkin, autumn leaves, a turkey, a pilgrim’s hat, scarecrow face, etc.
A really nice and original idea for your Thanksgiving invitations: first gather all kinds of fall leaves from your yard, then – for each invitation – take one leaf and put it in the middle of a small card (white, orange, yellow, crème-colored, or any other light color) and using a fall/autumn-colored spray-paint, lightly spray the leaf and card; then when you remove the leaf, you’ll have a nice outline of a leaf in the front of the card. You can write all the party information inside the leaf.
You can add fall leaves sequins and confetti into the envelope for that last touch.
For hand-delivered invitations, you can write all of the party information on miniature pumpkins. Or with raffia attach a small note to the stem of a pumpkin or even apple.
You can also fold an origami paper ship (Mayflower Ship) and write all of the party information on sails, which you can tape or glue with sticks to the body of the ship. Here’s a great origami site that can show you how to create different kinds of ships (in the search box – type in “boat” and click on “find”).
Where the party information is written, you can encourage people to come dressed as pilgrims and Indians to get more into the Thanksgiving holiday atmosphere. You can also put all kinds of related costumes, pilgrim clothing, Pilgrim Hats, aprons, belts, large white collar shirts, Indian clothing, feather crowns, etc., into a big chest and have people dress up. You can also use face paint, and once someone comes add a couple of colored face paint to their cheeks to look like an Indian.
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Thanksgiving Party Ideas - Decorations:
We have written this separate page about Thanksgiving decorating, from table settings, centerpieces, indoor and outdoor decorations to decorating for children.
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Thanksgiving Party Ideas - Food and Drink:
Every household has its own traditions and its own way of setting up the celebration. You might want a much more formal celebration, with elaborate table settings, your very best china, etc.; and you might be the type that doesn’t want to deal with dirty dishes, and rather buy Thanksgiving paper plates: Thanksgiving Partyware. All in all, it doesn’t matter either way, the most important thing is that friends and family take the time to share each other’s company and be thankful about life and it’s moments.
A nice thing to do before you dig into that turkey, is to take a moment for each person around the table to say a sentence starting with “Today, I’m grateful for . . .” It’s very nice to hear people’s thank-yous, especially children who can say the loveliest things.
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Thanksgiving Party Ideas - Food
* Turkey (of course!!), which can be baked, roasted, smoked, grilled or even fried.
* Ham - goes great with the turkey.
* Stuffing – the stuffing can either be cooked inside or outside the turkey.
* Indian Soup – chicken soup, thick broth with lots of healthy vegetables, carrots, potatoes, etc., corn and cheese.
* Cornbread muffins
* Biscuits or Dinner Rolls
* Cranberry sauce
* A veggie tray – this can include raw carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, red, green, and yellow peppers; all with a few veggie dips (ranch, blue cheese, etc.).
* Sweet Potatoes and squash
* Meat pies
* Hot dips with chips or breads — hot dips such as Spinach-Artichoke or Hot Crab dip with sourdough bread or pita bread will definitely delight your guests.
* Corn on the cob
* Mashed Potatoes
* Green beans or green bean casserole
* Chili
* For kids, you can make sandwiches using favorite kid ingredients (peanut-butter and jelly, ham and cheese, honey and banana, bologna, etc.). Then with a large turkey cookie-cutter cut out turkey sandwich shapes.
Tip: you can serve lots of these things (esp. soups) in half or whole hollowed-out pumpkins.
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Thanksgiving Party Ideas - Drinks
* Apple cider – it’s great to add cinnamon sticks into this for that special taste and aroma
* Hot chocolate – always a favorite!
* Pumpkin Puree – For this you need a 15-ounce can of solid pack pumpkin puree, one 12-ounce can of frozen apple juice concentrate, an eighth teaspoon of ground nutmeg, one teaspoon of ground cinnamon and two and a half cups of water. To make, remove the pumpkin from the can and freeze for an hour. Then, combine the slightly frozen pumpkin, frozen apple juice concentrate, nutmeg and cinnamon and blend until smooth. While blending, add water to fill the blender.
* Thanksgiving punch – combine a 32-ounce bottle of chilled apple juice, one 12-ounce can of frozen cranberry juice concentrate and one cup of orange juice into a large punch bowl. Stir well, until all has dissolved. Then stir in one and a half liters of ginger ale slowly. The final touch is taking an apple, thinly slicing it, and floating apple slices on top of the thanksgiving punch.
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Thanksgiving Party Ideas - Party Treats
* Popcorn
* Candy corn
* Pumpkin cookies
* Carmel apples
* Cranberry critters – take a log of canned jellied cranberry sauce, and cut thin slices. With Thanksgiving shaped cookie-cutters, cut out shapes from the jellied cranberry sauce. You can do this with red Jell-O instead.
* Fruit-shaped candies, cereal or fruit snacks
* Cornucopias – You can have little sugar cones on a small plate, and fill them with fruit-shaped candies (as if they are overflowing out of the cone).
Tip: One of the coolest Thanksgiving party ideas is to put some of these party treats in an upside-down pilgrim hat...
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Thanksgiving Party Ideas – Desserts and Sweets
* Check out these great homemade Thanksgiving cakes, pictures and recipes!!
* Pumpkin Pie! You can bake a large one or create little mini ones using ready-made mini pie shells.
* Pecan Pie, Cherry Pie, Apple crumb pie – all pies are also Thanksgiving favorites.
* Thanksgiving sugar cookies – This is where kids can decorate their own Thanksgiving cookies. Have a separate table with lots of sugar cookies to cut out and Thanksgiving cookie cutters, such as turkeys, pumpkins, pilgrim hats, scarecrows, etc. Provide with different color sprinkles and frosting, candy corn, etc.
* Cookie Place cards – You can bake little rectangular sugar cookies and with colored frosting or gel write names of party guests on them; decorate as you wish and put each one on each plate.
Tip: You can pour Cranberry and Apple juices into ice-cube trays. Then cover the trays with foil and push popsicle sticks through the foil into each separate cup. Then leave the trays in the fridge overnight and the next day your Cranberry and Apple popsicles will be ready to serve!
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Thanksgiving Party Ideas – “Thank You!” Bags
One of the most important Thanksgiving party ideas is to give out Thank-You-Just-Because bags after the Thanksgiving celebration has ended and people are beginning to leave.
For the bags themselves you can take brown paper lunch sacks, cut the tops in a zigzag way (you don’t have to do this, but it can give the bag a little more character). Then, in between the spaces of the zigzag, staple on tissue leaves in autumn colors. You can also attach raffia (knotted into little bows). Then with a green or brown marker, you can write each person’s name on the bag or a big “THANK YOU” as well. You can also make your own using the free printables on this site.
Inside the Thank You bag you can put all kinds of Thanksgiving items, little candy pumpkins, candy corn, Thanksgiving cookies you can wrap with cellophane, little Turkey erasers, pencils, candles, notepads, etc.
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Thanksgiving Party Ideas - Games and Activities
It’s always fun to play games and activities that fit the Thanksgiving theme. We have dedicated two whole pages of Thanksgiving games and activities that can help you bring all your friends and family together together. Start on this Thanksgiving party ideas for games page...
There are also lots of crafts you can make with your children to keep them busy and while they create Thanksgiving themed crafts that can also be used for decorating. We have written two whole pages of all kinds of Thanksgiving crafts to consider, start on this crafts page...
