Thanksgiving Plans and Traditions

When I was younger, we spent pretty much every Thanksgiving with my Mom and Grandparents-uh, as far as I can remember. To be honest, we may have spent a few years with my Dad, but if we did, I don't remember it. I don't remember much about being little. 

Anyway, this year we are going to my Dad's house in Atlanta. (Last year he came to our house.) We are going to have dinner there and spend all day cooking. We are having Cajun Turkey, Brisket, corn, green beans, homemade mashed potatoes, mac and cheese (Sam's request), rolls...I gotta pick those up-and for dessert we are having homemade apple cobbler-made from the apples we picked when we went to the orchard, ice cream pie, and maybe a homemade spice cake-depends if I decide to make it or not. Our appetizer is going to be homemade chili cheese queso dip. Yum. 

Then Friday I am going Black Friday shopping with my Dad, and after Jessie gets off work, we are going to MIL's. 

I have tried to look up traditions. (Last year I mentioned that I wanted to start doing some of the basic traditions from which today's traditions originated from.) I can't find much. I mean, Thanksgiving is not THAT old. All I can find is FOOTBALL and Parades and such. But I did find a good story about the First Thanksgiving to tell Samantha. May try to find some Thanksgiving legends to read to her. And I know the very first Thanksgiving had food and games, and we always play games, so we will have food and games. And corn...lol They had corn, and we will have corn. :) 

I did a few Thanksgiving activities with Sam today. We found a Thankful turkey online like the one Christina did with Grace, but since I don't have a printer with ink, we just made our own from toilet paper rolls and construction paper. I made one too. Samantha did pretty well with her. I figured it would help her with her writing some more. She is getting good! After awhile, she started drawing pictures instead though. Her Thankful feathers were: Princess (the cat), family, our house, and jellybeans. Other than that, we have just been doing a lot of baking solar system activities, but I think with Christmas coming up and I really want her to get this being thankful and giving message, we are going to focus on some more activities that are related to the message and the holiday and just put the solar system on hold. Unless the universe explodes or the world ends on the 21st, it will be there when we get back to it. 

Also, side note, I am extremely excited that we found the color wood we want to put down in the living room this February! We have been having a hard time picking something out that wouldn't darken the room too much, but wouldn't be too light, AND that would still go with the decor and paint color we picked out. I found the idea in my Better Homes and Gardens December issue!