Thanksgiving is over but there’s no time to rest yet as the real preparations are beginning for the holidays! One of the biggest things we need to do is to take time to sit down and evaluate how our Thanksgiving was. What was everyone’s favorite part? Was there anything that didn’t work well? Do you need to set up a rotating schedule to have dinner at other family member’s homes? (Odd year here, Even year there, or every 3rd, 4th, year?) Would it be better to have a potluck-style meal where everyone brings something? Was there anything you would like to do differently? Start now for your planning for next year so you don’t forget these ‘little things’! We will also be getting all of our Fall decor ready to be put away next week so we can start pulling out the Christmas decor.
We pray that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that you didn’t go over budget with the Black Friday spending. We had a beautiful day and we were so blessed to have family and friends to enjoy it with.
The kids did a lot of work to help with our Thanksgiving dinner and preparations. We counted it as Life Skills and they were happy that it wasn’t ‘bookwork’. They have asked if we can have more lessons like this.
The weeks before Thanksgiving the kids helped to plan out the menu, check the pantry for supplies, and help order the groceries. Then they helped to organize the recipes and pull out the dishes and serving trays that would be needed. They did a pretty good job as you will see in the pictures below.
This casserole is so easy to throw together and you can customize it to make it your own by adding veggies to it or a little more cheese. It is very similar to my Chicken Bacon Ranch Casserole that we love but haven’t been making since we’ve been eating a more keto-friendly diet.
This goes great with any veggies, rice or caulirice, salad, or some garlic bread. You could even use leftover chicken (or maybe turkey) in the recipe and just cube it or shred it… it would be even easier to put together.
Thanksgiving is almost here and I can’t wait! Over the past few weeks, I’ve posted about some of the things we are doing to help prepare our homes for the holidays and hopefully prevent a little of the CHAOS. We will continue to review those things and work on a few more things this week. Our list is as follows:
We will take a little extra time during our weekly ‘Home Blessings’ to make sure that everything is cleaned, windows are shined, and floors are swept, mopped, and vacuumed.
I will be checking my Holiday Planner for the timeline of things I need to do to prepare for Turkey Day. ex: defrost turkey, clean oven, clean kitchen, empty fridges, get out centerpieces, etc.
I will review the menu lists in my Holiday Planner so I can add all of the perishables to my weekly grocery list so I can get them purchased ASAP and not have to make a last-minute grocery run on the day before as things will definitely be CRAZY and many shelves may be EMPTY!
I’ll review my list of ‘make-ahead’ items and try to knock out a few of them so there will be less to do at Thanksgiving.
I will pull out some of those Thanksgiving activities that I found earlier and let the kids work on them while I work on other things. The kids will help with preparations when they can but there are some things that I just want to do myself.
If we have decided to do any Black Friday or Cyber Monday shopping we will review our planned lists and budgets.
I’m also trying to plan to do the 3 gift rule here this year but I’m not sure how it will go yet. I’ve got some links about this idea HERE, HERE, and HERE. This will hopefully encourage the focus to be more on Jesus than Santa and the gifts he will bring.
Most of all we will do our best to be thankful for all the family and friends that we have been blessed with and try to create some special memories with them during the holiday season! We pray that you and your family have a blessed Thanksgiving!
