What is your favorite Thanksgiving tradition? (besides eating turkey!)?

I have a ceramic bowl that has apples and autumn leaves on it. I use this bowl as the centerpiece to our table setting. I write out several things on slips of paper that one must do or say if they were to draw the slip of paper.

During dinner we have a list of 5 words you can not say during the meal and after meal table talk. Such as, glass, gravy, mom, work and phone. If someone says a taboo word they must reach into the bowl and draw the slip of paper.

Each piece drawn must be accomplished by the end of the meal and table talk time. Things I have put on the papers in the past include:Sing I am a little teapot w/actions for everyoneSteal someones roll off their plate in a sneaky wayYou can only answer yes to anything someone asks you for the next 5 minutes. Needless to say, my three young adult children love to come home for Thanksgiving Dinner and they bring their college friends with them.

Everyone always leaves with a good laugh and a fond memory.

I 'm posting an article on collecting family stories and old photos to share with the future generations. It is in honor of my uncle who passed away. He told me many stories about my mother and her antics as a spoiled little sister as well as stories about some of the very unusual horses the family has owned over the years.

I hope others will take a cue from the article and start preserving their family history while they still can.

Every year between main course and dessert on Thanksgiving and Christmas, we take a few minutes to complete a holiday trivia quiz. The internet has been a treasure trove of interesting and silly questions about history, traditions, food and drink, and jokes that make us laugh and kid around. My sister has developed a version of the pilgrims 1st thanksgiving that beats anything on the comedy channel.

The more outrageous the quiz answers the more fun.

We read aloud the things were are thankful for. Up to Thanksgiving each night (about two weeks before or so) all of us write one blessing. We now have a thankful jar to put the papers in.

Later we will make a garland out of the papers and hang them on the Christmas tree or another prominent place. I just wrote a hub about this very thing!

Chelle that sounds like a fun idea! That could be used anytime the family gets together! Thank you for sharing.

Another great idea grannygoodearth. I'll be sure to check out your article. Elyse I'll be sure to check out your hub as well.

That sounds like a great idea for my grandchildren as well as the adults!Jennafaw...I love graham cracker crust! I've never tried it with pumpkin pie! Maybe I'll try that one for Christmas!

Thank you to all of you for sharing these thoughts with me. Be blessed and have a Merry Christmas!

My very own pumpkin pie. I use graham cracker crust instead of the other kind of crust, and it taste better than regular pumpkin pie.

My husband and I started having a Thanksgiving celebration exclusively for our friends the year we met when a dear friend of ours told us that his grandparents (with whom he lived) had decided not to celebrate Thanksgiving that year. The week before the actual holiday I set up my dining room with my nicest dishes (considering I was 20 and in college they were not so nice, haha) and made a full Thanksgiving feast. We enjoyed the meal together and then drank egg nog and watched Christmas Vacation.It became a yearly tradition into which we incorporated my best friend.

Now she and I spend all day cooking (we lovingly refer to it as Thanksgiving Impossible) and end it with our welcoming of the Christmas season. This is the most fun of Thanksgiving for me.My family is very small and we don't do anything really big or traditional and my husband comes from a huge Scottish clan that fills the entire house with noise and chaos which is just a bit much for me. This is my chance to be the fancy hostess and wife and I truly adore it.

We all gather around the table tell one another what were thankful for, its cute,especially when the little kids answer,they always have something off the wall to say :).

I like just getting together with the family. I am away at school right now so it makes it easy to see everyone.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.