Our extended family is growing by leaps and bounds – and we are all still trying to figure out our Thanksgiving traditions.  We are in our 3rd year of switching houses for dinner on Josh’s side, and there are five children under 5 years old who will be running around the new house on Thursday.  I’ve decided that no matter what the setting is, Auntie Leigh will start bringing cool kids crafts for the children to do while the fabulous cooks are getting things ready for everyone.  This year, I’m bringing the supplies to make clothespin turkeys for the table setting!

Supplies you will need for the clothespin turkeys:

• clothespins
• paint (optional – I think these would look really nice with the plain wood clothespins, too)
• googly eyes
• felt or construction paper for beak and turkey waddle-thingy
• feathers or construction paper feathers
• glue or double-stick tape

Elias and I did a little bit of prep for the craft today – we painted the clothespins so we could have some fun rainbow colored turkeys at the table with us on Thursday!

Elias actually painted one, and I painted the rest.  Good enough.

If you choose to paint the clothespins, give them a chance to dry, then bag them up for your bulk turkey production on Thursday.

Cut out little orange triangles for beaks and little red waddle-thingy shaped thingies…

… and then start to make a sample turkey to give the kids an example to look at as they craft away on Thursday.

Glue or tape the feathers to one side of the painted clothespin (I will do this with double-sided tape on Thursday, because the glue is still drying on the feathers I glued to my turkey, and I don’t want the kids to have to wait that long.  Instant gratification, you know.)…

Glue or stick down googly-eyes and a waddle-thingy and a beak on the front of the turkey, and stand the bird up to be admired! (one good thing about doing crafts with kids is you can leave glue all gloopy around the edges, and it doesn’t bother them!  And if adults see it, they can just assume that a child did the craft!  It’s a win-win situation!)

Put together all of your supplies for the turkey craft into a large zip-top bag for easy transport to your Thanksgiving dinner location, and you will be the “favorite aunt” for a little bit (at least until the kids taste Auntie Gina’s amazing mashed potatoes).

I still need to put in my double-side tape and a marker – I will be asking all of the adults to write what they are thankful for on their turkeys, and we will place them at each plate at the dinner table – and maybe we can start a new tradition of reading the thankful turkeys at dinner time!

Do you have any tricks for helping kids spend the long hours before Thanksgiving dinner?