Thanksgiving Countdown Calendar

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I’ve been wanting a countdown calendar since my oldest son was old enough to understand what a countdown calendar was.  This year we had one made for us.  Thanks Mom!  It turned out super cute, my mom used her Bernina sewing machine to embroider the numbers onto each little pocket.  I bought the background fabric on ebay.com because I just couldn’t resist it.  My mom came up with the “Give Thanks” border along the top.

Each pocket has a little note with a fun activity to do on that day.  Here are the activities that I had typed out this year in a word document to give you some ideas.
Thanksgiving Advent Activities
We didn’t use all of the activities that I printed out and I had to make a few new replacements late at night on scratch paper.  I also admit that some of the activities were kind of cheating on my part, such as “Get a haircut and go out for ice cream afterwards”.  Even the promise of ice cream afterwards didn’t persuade my oldest that this activity wasn’t really an undesirable chore in disguise!  A few of the activities were events that were already scheduled such as a birthday party, an Operation Christmas Child shoebox packing party, or our monthly Adventurer meeting (a scouting-type of club that we do at our church like boy scouts).  I had a “Thankful for (insert child’s name here)” card for each of my kiddos and on that day they got to choose a fun parent-approved activity to do.  I’m sure I’ll add to and change some of the activities next year.

One of our favorite activities this year was doing “Thanksgiving Mad Libs” which I found on amazon.com.  Bonus points for this one because it counts for school too!  The whole family loved this and we had a blast doing it together as a family.

We also enjoyed adding a new Thanksgiving book to our collection.  A tradition I read about on Heidi St. John’s website.

I hope that our traditions give you some fun ideas for next year!