“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
Colossians 2:6-7
How do you purposefully celebrate Thanksgiving and yet make it an enjoyable and restful event?
First and foremost, be thankful! I have been redeemed and thus my life should flow with thanksgiving! A heart of thanksgiving results in a spirit of contentment, a heart of peace and rest in God’s goodness and ultimately will provide the only true restful and simple holiday. Our hearts must be in the right place! We can have a beautifully decorated house, perfect arrangement of food, and yet without love and thanksgiving all our efforts will be in vain and bring stress rather than rest.
Keep the menu simple and balanced- one protein (turkey or other meat), one starch (sweet potato dish), one vegetable and one dessert! Divide the labor between family members and guests.
Read the history of Thanksgiving and share what you are thankful for this year. A great resource is The Thanksgiving Primer offered by Vision Forum. Another resource recommended by a reader is Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember. 
Include others - is there any individuals (i.e. international students) or families that don’t have relatives in the area? Include others as a way of reaching out in your community. If you look around, there are many lonely people during the season.
Watch a family classic movie - The Grinch has always been both of our family’s favorite. I can’t say I enjoy it so much, but it is tradition, everyone says! For the top ten Thanksgiving movies, visit here.
A few fun projects for families:
Thanksgiving Craft Ideas - a pdf full of fun purposeful Thanksgiving crafts offered from Vision Forum. Includes a little menu craft for your thanksgiving celebration in which to write the 5 Kernels of Corn Poem.
Thanksgiving Place setting Ideas- Legend of the 5 Kernels
Thanksgiving Garland
Edible Turkeys
Thanksgiving Corn Craft
Free Thanksgiving Coloring Pages
Printable Native American Headdress
Thanksgiving Paper Chain - each chain represents something you are thankful for, keep adding throughout the season!
Above all, just enjoy being together!
The floor is open to hear your thoughts and creative ideas for Thanksgiving!
For further ideas, check out Thanksgiving on A Budget.
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Every year, a group of our closest graduate school friends hosts a Thanksgiving dinner. It’s simple for everyone because they bring one or 2 dishes and we have a huge potluck dinner! What I love best is that the focus of the dinner is sharing Thanksgiving with hundreds of international students who have never tasted turkey, stuffing or pumpkin pie before; and many of whom have never heard the Thanksgiving story! We share the history of Thanksgiving either through a skit, a storybook or 20-questions, and spend time sharing what this holiday means to us as Christians. I love that the day is simple, focused on sharing the love of Christ with others, and provides an opportunity to share what we are thankful for!
sadly we won’t be able to do this this year, but we host a thanksgiving dinner the saturday before thanksgiving for single service men and women from our base and my husbands squadron. These guys, especially the young ones, are often lonely this time of year and in need of a fresh homecooked meal. It is truly a powerful, wonderful time!
We like to read Barbara Rainey’s book, Thanksgiving, a Time to Remember. I’m hosting a giveaway for it on my blog (until Friday 11/14):
http://funmajors.blogspot.com/2008/11/being-thankful.html
Thanks for sharing your ideas Julie! I added them to the list above. Blessings!
Reading Thanksgiving, A Time to Remember is one of our favorite things we do all year! After we finish each night’s reading, we reenact what we’ve read. It’s great fun and has really helped the true story of Thanksgiving stick in the kids’ heads. I LOVE reading all of our thankful cards from over the years.
Simplify Thanksgiving? Is it possible?
Living in Alaska, many people are apart from their extended families. We’ve joined in the tradition of meeting with the church on Thanksgiving day for a huge feast (with every woman bringing one or two delicious favorites, it gets big very quickly). We eat together and then spend the afternoon fellowshipping, playing games, and participating in a fun talent show. If we only invited the indians, I think it would be very like the original occasion. But speaking of inviting people, several people from the community that were invited to be with the church last Thanksgiving have stayed on with us the entire year and have become our good friends. While I do miss the intimate family gatherings, I love the camaraderie and connectedness that comes with our Christian family at these large gatherings.
This is a great post! I am going to have to check out some of your links. Another wonderful way to celebrate is to send Thank You notes to friends. Thank them for being who they are and tell them how much they mean to you. Awesome post!
Thanksgiving is my FAVORITE holiday! It’s when I get the most homesick every year because my Hubby’s family don’t do anything. I’ve enjoyed doing it in school with the kids as I have so many happy memories with my Grandma who loved having all of us around her tables. She always gave us jobs to do - making special name cards, looking up thanksgiving scriptures etc and helped us kids to learn by taking part! She was definitely a Titus 2 woman! I’m having fun with the links.
thanks Lindsey! A fabulous post.
Simplify Thanksgiving? Not in our family. Lots of great food, fellowship, family and friends! At our grocery store we get a free turkey w/so many points. We have both our families over then some friends, and anyone who doesn’t have a place to go to.
The guys will go the den and watch football, the ladies will chat in the kitchen w/the children playing nearby. Some Christmas movie is playing.
I like to simplify at other times of the year, just not the holidays.
Our favorite Thanksgiving movies include:
Home Alone 1 or 2
ET
Christmas Vacation (this gets watched on Christmas Day as well lol)
WE have so many traditions that we embrace during the holidays, and a lot of the ones that you have listed, we love as well. Our entire family meets in the mountains and we stay at hotel (4 of us children - 29 grandkids between us). It is a magical time for the cousins, and ironically, our Thanksgiving has become so simplified that one year when our traditional restaurant was closed on Thanksgiving, we ended up at Golden Coral. It’s a hilarious story, but now…it’s tradition. Yes, a bunch of home school bread baking sister in laws enjoying the bounty of Golden Coral - who would have ever thought it.