October 30, 2018

An Enjoyable Thanksgiving

By Karen McCoy
Marketing Consultant
Ridgecrest Village

With Thanksgiving around the corner, I began to think about how I could make this an enjoyable Thanksgiving for everyone, young and not as young. It’s a time when we all gather together for a meal, to give thanks and to celebrate family.  Nowadays there can be 4 or even 5 generations spending the day together.  We will have 4 generations together and past experience has shown me that pre-planning can save the day.  Instead of sending the children off to play and basically get them out from underfoot, by taking some time to plan ahead, you can make this Thanksgiving more enjoyable.

As I was considering our holiday I pondered what will be the obstacles of the day and how can we turn those obstacles into positive experiences for everyone. The first one that comes to mind is cell phones and computer games. I have asked the older generations to think about funny stories they can tell the grandchildren about their parents.  This will entertain the children and exercise the grandparent’s brains. I am helping the grandparents by visiting with them ahead of time to remind them of some of the stories I remember from being a kid to get their memories going. Everyone loves a good laugh.

The next obstacle is to keep the conversation going. I think it is important for my parents to show interest in what the grandchildren are interested in. Sometimes it’s hard to find things to talk about unless there has been some preplanning, so I have spent time with them telling them what the children are doing and giving them ideas of things to talk about with the kids to get them to share what they are involved with. For instance, the boys played baseball this summer.  I asked Dad to invite the boys to tell him about their winning grand slams or great catches, I figure the boys would love to brag and I know Dad can relate because he played ball as a kid.  Mom is going to bring some recipes to share with the girls and tell them the history of them, share that they have been handed down from their great-great-grandmother.  She is bringing along a picture to show the girls of her.  We are going to get the ingredients for an easy one so they can make the dish together for dinner.

Now for my kids great plans are being made to embarrass them a little.  We are pulling out photo albums so we can share funny and some of the embarrassing photos of them. This should livened things up a little.

Another obstacle is after dinner, the older adults are stuffed and the kids still want to make it a fun day so we are going to play some card games and a couple of board games that are easy for everyone to understand.  Some of the grandchildren already know how to play so it should be fairly easy to have everyone catch on.

For the little one, we have bubbles and balloons to play with, but I think everyone will get in on the fun with those.

My husband has reminded me, be flexible and expect the unexpected so my real plan is just to share the time together, laugh and give lots of hugs and kisses. We should all cherish the opportunity that the holidays bring, to spend time together with family and grow those bonds just a little more this year. I wish you all a blessed Thanksgiving and hope some of my ideas will spark you to do some planning before the big day to help you bring your family together to share their memories and create new ones.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Karen McCoy is Marketing Consultant for Ridgecrest Village in Davenport, Iowa. For more information about Ridgecrest Village, contact Karen at (563) 391-3430.

Filed Under: Community, Personal Growth

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