The Book of New Family Traditions (35 page)

Amy Candland wrote in
Family Fun
magazine (February 2006) about how her extended family goes around the table detailing their gratitude, using the alphabet as their guide. The first person says something he or she is grateful for that starts with A, and so forth. One year, Amy’s mother secretly arranged things to be sure Amy was the one to get the letter U: She used her turn to announce she was grateful for the ultrasound that showed she was pregnant (her first child), and she waved the ultrasound photo triumphantly!

A Chair for the Absent

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, I suggested in a newsletter that people include one empty chair at their table that Thanksgiving to honor the memory of the thousands who died. Monica Hall wrote me later, “We always have a craft corner for people to make their own place cards for Thanksgiving. This year, we made an extra place card, so that all of our twenty guests could write the name of someone they wish was sitting there. Kids who were divorced wrote the name of missing parents, some adults wrote the name of an estranged family member. Then, during the meal, two dads prayed for all the people whose names were on that card.” I think this is a powerful tradition, and a simple one, that can apply to every Thanksgiving.

How to Make a Thankfulness Tree

Materials

Construction paper in red, yellow, and orange

Pencil

Scissors

String or ribbon

Bare tree branches about two to three feet long

Vase for branches

Instructions

Trace the maple leaf shape on this page, or draw a template of your own. Once you have the template, use a pencil and outline the leaf shape on the colored paper. Cut out as many leaf shapes as you wish. If your children are very young, you may want to do this part ahead. Spread the leaves across the table, and let everybody in the family write things on the leaves for which they are thankful that year. Poke a small hole in the stem part of the leaves, thread with string and hang on the branches. Afterward, save all the leaves, either gluing them into the family scrapbook, or stuffing them in a plastic Baggie marked with the year. (When he gets older, my son will love that he was thankful for “my brane” at age six.)

This is one of those activities that I sometimes need to nag my menfolk about, but once we are actually sitting at the table and filling out our leaves, it has invariably been a wonderful and illuminating shared experience. I never think ahead of time about what I’m going to write, and it’s always a revelation, as are the things for which my husband and son are grateful. Looking back over the past leaves provides a real window into what mattered to us most as the years passed.

Alternative Idea: Make your thankfulness tree as a poster, drawing a picture of a tree, then having the kids trace around their hands on colored paper and make those handprints the leaves. Glue “leaves” to tree on poster.

Thanksgiving Reader

Various attempts have been made over the years to create a book or script like the Haggadah used for the Jewish holiday of Passover, so that families can take turns reading during the Thanksgiving feast. The idea of making the meal more than just an exercise in planned overeating is a laudable one, and people can craft their own version, adding prayers and readings from historical accounts of the first Thanksgiving.

If you are looking for a good script that has already been compiled, I recommend “America’s Table: A Thanksgiving Reader,” which was created by the American Jewish Committee after 9/11. You can use as much or as little as you choose, and it includes some strong writing celebrating America’s traditions of I freedom and compassion. Go to AJC.org and search for “America’s Table.” (Note: the site lists different versions, by year, but it doesn’t matter which you choose. The central text is the same in each one. All that changes is the sidebars that feature profiles of various Americans telling their own stories.).

Here is a sample, taken from the last page of the seventeen-page booklet:

We are the stewards of America:

•
We are thankful for the freedom to worship.

•
We are thankful for the freedom to speak our minds.

•
We are thankful for the freedom to change our minds.

•
We are thankful for the freedom to celebrate this day.

•
In America, each of us is entitled to a place at the table.

Connecting When You’re Apart

On the day before Thanksgiving, Gines family members all over the country make pie at exactly the same time, using Grandma Betty’s piecrust recipe. Betty, who has six children, calls each household in turn and speaks to each grandchild. This is a wonderful idea for today’s far-flung families. If you wish, you can do this and take photos or videos and collect them on a shared family blog.

Instant Holiday T-Shirts for Your Family

For people who can make crafts, the website of online crafts supplier Dharma Trading provides great materials as well as tutorials and patterns for family craft projects. This idea, which would also work for other major family holidays, takes a little pre-planning, but it’s entirely doable. If you’d rather not be rushing around completing the T-shirts that day, another option would be to take a group photograph of your celebration and send the T-shirts out later as mementos.

The basic idea is to take a group photograph, then run off to the computer while everyone else is hanging out and chatting. Download your chosen digital image to your computer. You will use your computer printer to print the photo on chemically treated inkjet transfer paper, then use an iron to transfer that photo image onto plain white cotton T-shirts. Before the turkey (or maybe the pie) is out of the oven, voilà! You will be handing every family member a matching themed T-shirt to wear. Dharma sells everything from the white cotton shirts to the inkjet transfer paper.

You’ll find the tutorial at:
www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/2548071-AA.shtml?lnav=home.html
. Or go to
DharmaTrading.com
and search for Family Holiday Photo Transfer Tutorial.

Fun Thanksgiving Dinner Ideas

Autograph the Tablecloth

In Mindy Robinson’s family, thirty or forty people regularly attended the feast, and every person would sign the tablecloth with a pen during dinner. Afterward, her mother would embroider over the signature lines, in a different color thread each year. (The year is embroidered around the edge of the tablecloth, in the color used that year.) The cloth became a visual history of the holiday, reminding the family who was missing this year and how much the little ones had grown, as signatures changed.

Turkey Parade

There can be a lot of pressure when preparing a major feast. One family finds that once all the dishes are finally ready, all of them need to let off some steam and stretch their legs before sitting down to eat. Each person attending is given a pot or pan and a spoon, and the cook carries the finished turkey on a large platter. The group literally parades down the street (briefly, before the bird cools completely), banging on pots and screaming “Happy Thanksgiving!” to the neighborhood. This has to be one of my very favorite “problem-solving” rituals of all time!

Pilgrims and Indians

Allison Dafferner’s family had a tradition of making Pilgrim and Indian hats. It gave the kids something to do while her mother cooked, and it sure was festive. The hats were made from colored construction paper and glued or stapled together. Tradition had it that the kids could pick first whether they wanted to be Pilgrims or Indians, and the adults, who also participated, balanced out the numbers.

Kid-Friendly Feast

Monica Hall of Baltimore, Maryland, got tired of cranky kids, forced to sit too long. She puts the little ones at a separate table, buys extra turkey legs, and gives them cranberry Jell-O
^®
instead of cranberry sauce. When they finish, they can play in the basement playroom, while the adults converse.

Take the Feast Outdoors: A Picnic Tkanksgiving

Dorothy Steinicke lives in Southern California and started a tradition about twenty years ago of celebrating the holiday in a local state park, which she finds not crowded at this time. Friends and family, about thirty people in all, attend and sit together at several picnic tables that have been pulled together and covered with tablecloths. It’s potluck, and when the kids are done eating, instead of fidgeting at the table, they climb trees or explore the pond. “After a while, the adults rouse themselves and go for a hike,” says Dorothy. “We go several miles and return before sunset for dessert.”

Step-Family Alternate Outdoor Thanksgiving

Linda McKittrick was well aware that her stepdaughter, named J, who lives nearby in New Mexico, enjoyed celebrating a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at her mom’s house with old friends and graciously suggested that she and her husband start a different tradition for the girl. So the second Thanksgiving feast each year, celebrated with J’s dad and Linda, is held in the evening, outside, around a campfire, where they roast turkey dogs and make S’mores. “The sun sets and the mood cast by the fire leads to fun, storytelling, and deeper conversation,” says Linda.