Surviving Thanksgiving

Hello there all,

Thanksgiving in my family is usually celebrated with plates and plates of food and loud yelling from football enthusiasts. However, incase you can't tell, I'm not really a football type of girl. And the mister isn't really a football type of guy, so we have devised a plan for this Thanksgiving. We shall call this mission: Surviving Thanksgiving.

What is the execution plan?

1.) Load up on a billion board games. 

Board games are a bit of a hobby in this house these days, and one of the things that I am the most excited about is having some time to play these games. Games that I'm going to make sure that we include are Caverna, Lost Cities, and Scrabble. Hmm, I should probably think of some better storage for our games, too. The games are filling the top AND bottom of our coat closet.

2.) Pumpkin pie playdough- I'm constantly trying to buy my first place as best aunt to my nephews. This Thanksgiving, Pumpkin Pie playdough is my attempt at winning their love. The recipe that I made is based on this recipe, but I changed it just a smidge.

            What you'll need?

• 2 cups of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 2.5 TBSP of Pumpkin Pie Spice
• 2 TBSP of cream of tartar
• 1 TBSP of cinnamon
• 2 cups of water
• 2 TBSP of oil
• food coloring (optional)

            What you'll need to do:

1. Mix together all dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another bowl.
2. Heat the wet ingredients over medium-high heat in a pot. You are heating the liquid until the liquid warms up and before it starts to boil. There is a big gap here.
3. Throw the dry ingredients in with wet ingredients and mix well. You should start to see the dough coming to life.
4. Remove from heat and wait until dough cools down to the touch.
5. Knead the dough a bit. It is now ready for play time, and it will leave your hands smelling delicious!

3.) Thankful Memories
It is common for people to reflect on what they are thankful for, however, I am adding a bit to that to make it more reflective. This year, I am going to start a tradition of writing down what we each of us is thankful for, and I'll put it into a scrapbook. This way, we'll be able to peruse it on future Thanksgivings. I just cut some construction paper and wrote " (Insert name here) is thankful for..." and on the bottom, I wrote "...in 2014. It gives a clear indication of who/when the list was created, so we don't have to try to interpret that later.

4.) Laptop with movies.

Just in case we find a nice quiet spot, we'll bring a laptop to watch some episodes of a thing that we've been watching together or to watch some movies.

Overall, there doesn't need to be too much needed planning because Thanksgiving is about being together, but it certainly helps being together when you have a plan!

-Autumn