Easy (and fun) Turkey Day Craft!

As soon as Halloween is done with, and the mall is suddenly decorated for Christmas complete with a Santa, I lose any sense of what day, week or month it even is. Preparation for any holiday becomes a whirl wind of red, green, a lost pumpkin here and there, and random turkeys.  I started some Christmas shopping, mostly for the kiddos in the family and I have been going back and forth between ‘is it too early to wrap presents’ and ‘ahhhh I need to buy wrapping paper ASAP!’ Right now, our bedroom looks like Santa’s workshop, and my handy dandy notebook is filled with gift ideas for everyone on our list, along with a budget I am desperately trying to stick to. I am excited for Christmas because Lily is at such a fun age, but I am not quite ready to decorate, shop, and be swept up in the hustle and bustle these next to months become. Perhaps some deep breaths, and a day of cleaning and reorganizing (while possibly listening to Christmas music) will ease me into the inevitable? 

With the Christmas season being shoved in our faces earlier and earlier each year, we tend to overlook Thanksgiving. A day dedicated to delicious food and a day to reflect on everything in our life we should be grateful for and all the things we take for granted. If you are able to sit at a table and break bread with family and friends, give thanks. Even for just a minute. Count your blessings. Hug whoever slaved over dinner. And then hurry out the door to shop. Just kidding. I'm waiting until midnight for that...


I have been trying to do a craft or project each month (well since September) with Lily and Tristan. I’m a big fan of handprint art. It’s usually pretty cute and it’s fun to look back and see how tiny their hands were, and the kids love the tickling of the paint brush! In September we did trees with handprint leaves, October was ghost footprints, and of course, November will be some sort of handprint turkey. These are simple and fun projects that can later be turned into some sort of gift (calendar? photo book?) or decorations for the fridge. I’ve been scanning in each project so I have a copy on here and one to show off. Once a preschool teacher, always a preschool teacher.

I decided to step up my game this month and make decorations for Thanksgiving using the kid’s handprints. First, I took a baby food jar and poured some brown paint into it, covering the inside.  Then I found foam paper (at the Dollar Tree) and traced each kid’s hand on yellow, red, green, and orange sheets. I cut them out, glued them together, and fastened them to the jar. We glued on googly eyes and a beak and VOILA! Turkey day table decorations, made with love from Lily and Tristan! Depending on the age (or skill level) of your little helpers, they could help with the cutting, gluing, AND painting. I let Tristan and Lily shake the jars to make sure the paint was on every inch of the inside of the jar. Easy little table decoration, only a little time spent making it, and super cheap.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Gobble gobble!