I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. The meaning, the reasons behind it, and the history that surrounds it, the family time, and because I already find so much joy in counting up the little things that bless our lives every day, make it probably my favorite thing about autumn.
Thanksgiving dinner is a time when we often go “all out” and make it big and bountiful. After all, that’s part of what Thanksgiving is all about. But, sometimes money is tight and breaking the budget, even for Thanksgiving, isn’t an option. Sometimes it is more exhausting than it should be, and we are so busy creating a bounty that we don’t have time to be thankful for these very things.
But Thanksgiving doesn’t have to be exhausting and it doesn’t have to break the budget to be fun and memorable. Here’s a few things to keep in mind as you plan for your Thanksgiving celebrations this year.
Plan Ahead
Planning ahead is a vital part of any celebration or gathering if it is to go smoothly and as easily as possible, but planning ahead when money is tight can be the one thing that saves you the most money and time and allows you to create a celebration that will be special and fun even with out all the extras.
Most people already shop for deals, and even stock up when they can, but while you shop for deals and stock up through out the year, keep Thanksgiving in mind. A couple years ago, after Thanksgiving day had past, Wal-mart was selling Libby’s Pumpkin for around $.25/can. I bought a couple and they lasted us the entire year and provided a couple delicious pumpkin cheese cakes for the following Thanksgiving. Last year, cranberry sauce went on sale for a deal hard to pass up, and I have two cans sitting in my pantry that will be a part of our meal this Thanksgiving. And I’m so glad I do, because otherwise, we might have to skip out on it and the pumpkin pie this year.
Celery and onions freeze well and make creating bread dressing and other holiday dinner items a lot less time consuming when you can just take them, already chopped, out of the freezer and add them to your recipes.
Of course, not everything can be bought months in advance, but keep your eyes and ears open, and if you have a plan, you are more likely to figure out ways to make it work than if you wait until the last moment to start your planning and your shopping.
Planning ahead isn’t just about the food, though. With a little creative thinking and using the things that you have in your home or yard, you can create beautiful centerpieces and decorations without paying much or anything to get them!
Taking time to plan out the day its self is important because it makes sure, even if things are different this year- away from family, in a new state where it all feels strange and unknown, or when money is too tight to do the usual things, that you keep the tradition of being thankful and remembering what Thanksgiving really is about fresh in mind. Planning ahead gives you a chance to think about this, and intentionally work it in to your Thanksgiving day and hopefully help it to be as stress free as possible.
Keep it Simple
Some of my favorite Thanksgiving memories are centered around the simplicity of our meal. In my family, having an easy, but still special holiday meal is one of our traditions, and while it still takes a bit more work than the ordinary meal might take, it is simple enough that we can invest time in each other and in making the memories that really matter to us.
We pull things out of the freezer that were made in advance. We make short cuts, and have less courses to our meal, and (maybe even make a weekend out of it, instead of just a single meal) while still including the things that we love about Thanksgiving Dinner. And my parents often use paper plates.
Growing up, the meal was important and special, but the focus was on family time and helping others and being grateful for what we had, even if it wasn’t much.
Sit down and decide what you and your family really enjoy about Thanksgiving and dinner and make sure it is a special one, but don’t feel bad if you can’t do it all. If no one really likes the traditional candied yams or really eats the green bean casserole and apple salads if you just don’t make those dishes.
Use your china , and decorate the table a little bit, but if you have to choose between being rested and happy and enjoying the day and having an elaborate centerpiece, skip the centerpiece and focus on what is really more important than decor that we only use for one meal.
If you don’t have the money to do the meal you usually do, that’s okay. Do your best, and your simple meal with thankful hearts and happy faces will still make Thanksgiving one of the happiest days of the season.
And at the end of the day, everyone washes dishes together. After all, “many hands makes light work”!
Create New Traditions
My siblings and I grew up in Alaska, and flying a family back down to the lower 48 was too expensive, and we didn’t get to spend holidays with our relatives. It was hard at first, but we were young and my parents were amazing at creating new traditions and memories that I treasure and that Scott and I plan to keep alive, even if slightly re-created, in our own homes in the years to come. As we got older, it got harder to keep these traditions intact, but every chance we got together as a family, we made it a point to keep the traditions created when we were young alive.
Getting married and moving away from what I always knew and joining my husband’s family for holidays did mean things changed, but didn’t mean that the traditions I loved had to die, either. It simply meant that together, we as newly founded team, took the best parts of both of our families and the things we loved and began to forge our own, new traditions, built on the ones our families had created for us. Some things stay the same, and they probably always will. Other things are different, but creating new traditions with my husband has been one of the happiest parts of the holidays as a newlywed.
If you’re just married, or if you find yourself in a place where it feels like everything familiar has been swept away, don’t think of it as a loss as much as a chance to create. Sometimes, new traditions, pieced from the old, are the best things you ever did.
Sharing with “Strangers”
Thanksgiving is all about sharing. Not just with our families, but with others. Even if you don’t have money for something elaborate, and even if it means doing something different than you are use to, it is important to take time out from focusing on our needs to consider others and where they might be coming from.
My family grew up far away from our relatives and my parents made it a point to open our home at Thanksgiving time to many people over the years. Sometimes this meant having huge pots of soup for Thanksgiving dinner, and always meant that our home was crowded, noisy and usually a mess at the end of the day from so many little feet and hands that had been there. Sometimes we didn’t really plan on having a crowd, but it almost always ended up that way.
It was a lot of work sometimes. It was noisy and exhausting and there were times when I didn’t feel up to entertaining a host of people I hardly knew, and finding things to keep little hands busy and out of trouble. But every single time, I found that, even at the cost of my loved traditions on occasion, these were the happiest thanksgivings ever.
Growing up, I think it was important for us to learn to give more than we got, and to love even people who sometimes weren’t very lovable on the outside, and to include them in our family and our home when they had no where to go.
Now, while I might not have a crowd over every Thanksgiving, and I treasure the times with just our (now large and growing!) family, I hope it’ll always be a tradition with us to reach out and invite a “stranger” into our homes at Thanksgiving time. Even if the meal is simple and even if it means more dishes and more messes.
Taking Time to Remember
“Our only fear for the future, is that we shall forget how God has led us in the past”.
No matter what kind of meal you make, or what your traditions are, or if you bring people into your home or go out of your home to serve them at some other time during the year, don’t forget to stop and remember on Thanksgiving day.
Remember what He’s done for us as a Nation. Remember where we came from, and what our calling as a people is today.
Read about the people who founded this Nation. Read about why Thanksgiving was instituted as a national holiday in the first place. Take time to be grateful for what you have and think less about what you don’t have, and count your blessings.
Enjoy your meal and your company, and all of the blessings we have right now, but don’t forget to remember.
Savor Every Blessing
Thanksgiving and the days ahead of it might be times when we automatically think grateful thoughts and think more about our blessings. And it is a good thing to do!
But, I hope that sometime this Thanksgiving you’ll find time to go to a quiet place to think about what you’ve been given, and make plans to be intentional about making gratefulness an every day part of your lives. Teach your heart to be glad, and your lips to be quick to share the great things that our God has done for us. Speak more about the blessings this year than the bad things.
Keep a journal of thankfulness all year long. Learn to look for the positive and to find the blessing in each situation, and to be thankful, even for the thorns.
There will always be bad things, hard things in life. Sometimes we need to talk about them. But, even when things go wrong and life isn’t easy, savor every blessing. Make it a habit, and next Thanksgiving you’ll have even more reasons to celebrate the way that God takes care of us.
I have a lot to learn about Thanksgiving, keeping it simple and being content with what I have. I definitely am still learning to be thankful for the thorns, just like I love the roses. But, this Thanksgiving, I’m looking forward to remembering the past, and enjoying the present and what God has given me and my family this year.
Happy Thanksgiving to each and every one of us!
originally published at Life, Laughter, and Little Things
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