Thanksgiving is just around the corner - can you believe it? If you're hosting, going to someone else's house or just chilling with your immediate family at home, I've got 3 tips for you to make this a great Thanksgiving!
- Plan it out the cleaning ahead of time
The one thing that gets my anxiety up is making sure the house is clean and I have all of the menu timed with things taking their appropriate turn in the oven. I mean what's Thanksgiving without having multiple dishes of delightful food to eat! It all take a little planning, and thankfully you've got time! What I do is create a spread in my journal with what needs to be cleaned and what needs to be cooked and who's helping with what task. It's easy to get overwhelmed, but like they say, if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Even if I'm not hosting dinner at my house, I still like to have things cleaned so I'm not stressing about the dog hair or dust I see sitting around. And it's supposed to be a relaxing day to enjoy with family, so I want to make sure I do the work ahead of time to allow for a clean, calm peaceful time. Thankfully, I have a simple cleaner that I can hand to anyone in the family with the cleaning cloth, paper towels or mop and knock out those jobs pretty easily. Non toxic, safe for kids and pets are important to me when it comes to cleaning! Here's my sketch of what it will look like next week for us.
- Plan out the cooking ahead of time
Now for the food, the great eating event..... The turkey, gravy, dressing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole (that only the adults seem to like), home made rolls and pumpkin pie. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. 😋 But I only have one oven and everything needs it's time, so I plan it out with a spread in my journal again. Even down to making sure I take the turkey out of the freezer in time, because let's just say, I've learned the hard way that it takes WAY longer to thaw a frozen turkey than I think it should! 😂 Here's my sketch of how to make the great eating event happen this year... (not quite finished but started anyway)
- Be THANKFUL
It's kinda the whole point, right? I have been using a gratitude log in my journal for some time now, I try to write down a few things everyday that I'm grateful for because when you spend some time reflecting on the good things each day, it makes a huge difference in your overall outlook on life. If you haven't been doing that too, take some time to reflect over the last days, months, year and write down some things you are grateful for... the good moments, the things that sparked joy for you, the beautiful sunrise, someone holding the door open for you, the compliment someone gave you, your ability to help someone at the store get something off a shelf that they couldn't reach, the compliment you gave to someone, the ability you have to support your church or a school fundraiser... just write down anything that comes to mind.
Here's some ideas to share the gratitude with those you are spending time with:
- write down something you're grateful for about each person and put it under their plate
- have a board or piece of card stock that everyone can write down what they are thankful for throughout the day
- have pen/paper available for everyone to write/draw something for each person
- when you say grace before you eat, have everyone share something they are grateful for during the prayer
It's not happiness that brings gratitude. Its gratitude that brings happiness.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Once you start seeing things to be grateful for, your brain starts looking for more things to be grateful for!
This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!
I am grateful for being able to find a journal/planner/command central notebook that works for me to corral things like this into one place that I can easily reference at any point in time. I am on a journey to help others find ways to simplify life and corral the things that are important to them into one place too. I will be launching a mini course showing you how to do this too. Join the waitlist for the mini course to get more details about it! Click here to join the waitlist!
I hope your Thanksgiving is full of love, gratitude and joy!
Welcome to the Secret Sauce Blog where I help modern moms simplify life with tools that make life easier. We have a lot of responsibilities and it can get overwhelming. Keeping the family healthy, organized, actually eat together and tread lightly in the process takes some serious #momskills!
