A Virtual Thanksgiving Celebration

With the suggestions to celebrate Thanksgiving with only those in your immediate household, we will need to be a little more creative this year. We’ve found some ways to connect with our family without leaving home. Even though many of our family lives nearby, many also comes from out of state. And with this year especially, we need to find ways to connect with family. We also want to help remind our children of what they are thankful for this year especially.

Our Thanksgiving Plan

We have a rather large family with having four kids, so every meal is a bit of an affair. But we will still go all out for Thanksgiving Day since our children love the traditional foods we usually serve. However, since family isn’t able to join us for our celebration, we will virtually meet with our family to celebrate.

Thanksgiving Morning

We will begin our morning with a Thanksgiving craft. We love to make a turkey body to hang on the refrigerator. You can make this using one medium sized circle for the head and 1 larger sized circle for the body. Feel free to decorate with eyes, a beak, waddle, and legs. Then cut out some different colored ovals to make the feathers. We give the feathers to our kids to write different things that they are thankful for this year. We love to have this as a reminder throughout the day.

If your children are so inclined, use the other pieces of papers to make cards for those you love. You can use the leftover brown paper to make more smaller turkeys for the cards. Your children can make the cards for friends and families. Then write down why you are thankful for the person the card is for. If you have friends and family who don’t live so close, try a virtual card or even a slideshow you can share with your family. This is a great activity to keep your children engaged while you prepare the dinner.

Our Thanksgiving Meal

We still plan to cook up our favorite Thanksgiving foods, but that’s mostly because we usually do the cooking anyways. Additionally, our family finds Thanksgiving foods to be some of the most delicious foods. For us, the menu includes turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, corn, gravy, and rolls.

If these are not your forte, or your family prefers different foods, feel free to change your menu to match your family. Without the extended family making the trip, you really can specialize your Thanksgiving menu to your family. There are also various options for take out for Thanksgiving meals too. Enjoying a meal with your family is still a great way to celebrate together regardless of the food served. We used walmart shop, pickup and delivery app this year to avoid the overcrowded stores.

Cook Thanksgiving Dinner with your Kids

We love to get our kids in the kitchen with us. One of the best things you can do to encourage your little one to try new foods is to have them help you cook. Your kindergarten age children and older can help peel and cut potatoes. They can wash vegetables, measure ingredients, and open cans. Another great job for older children is to rinse out cans and run items to the recycling bin.

Your kindergarten and younger children can help too! We find that our preschool and toddlers love to help dump in ingredients. Just be sure to hand them the right ingredients to add and steady their hands. They can sprinkle in spices or fried onions or add marshmallows to the top of the sweet potatoes. If your child is interested, they could even help you stir or turn the blender on and off.

No matter what you are cooking for dinner. Try to find little ways to include your children. As you cook, explain to them what you are doing and why. And of course, allow them to take a taste of anything that is safe for them to eat. We find our toddler loves to eat dinner tasting everything that we cook and we know she isn’t filling up on snacks.

Connect with Family

Prior to dinner (or lunch), take a few minutes to celebrate with your family over a video conferencing program. Share the different ways you are thankful this year and enjoy some time just reconnecting with your family members. Don’t feel obligated to keep the connection open during dinner, but you always could too if that makes you feel more comfortable.

Plan a family event for after the meal. This can be sharing a movie or the football game together on zoom, playing an escape room together, or enjoying a favorite game together (Pictionary, Bingo, Scattegories, a trivia game, etc). There are so many different virtual options to connect with families and allow you to celebrate together from a distance. So many little things to allow us to feel together while we are apart.

And if a family member lives nearby, feel free to leave some left overs on their front stoop. My children love playing ding dong ditch and leaving a piece of cake, some dinner, or cookies for their friends and family nearby. Additionally, you could leave some cards for them to enjoy too. If you plan ahead, you could mail some cards to your family who lives further away to remind them why you are thankful for them too. Check out our other Thanksgivings post for more kid’s Thanksgiving activities.

Worried about making this wonderful dinner and having kids who won’t eat it? Check out our post sharing our Secret to Getting Your Kids to Eat Dinner. Don’t miss out on our Tips for Celebrating Christmas with Toddlers. Looking for ideas for New Year’s, read our post Celebrating New Year’s with Children. Drop us a comment below and let us know about your Thanksgiving plans. Want more holiday crafts and ideas to your inbox, subscribe to our family friendly newsletter below.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.