Thanksgiving Jobs for Kids
We hear from lots of parents that the trickiest things about holidays like Thanksgiving can be getting all of the everything done with kiddos underfoot.
We totally get it!
AND we’ve found that special days go much better when we give our children important roles and responsibilities. When they feel true ownership of our family traditions, kids love making holiday magic happen. Bonus? Over time, involving and empowering them actually leads to less Thanksgiving work for us! To that end, we’ve curated a list of Thanksgiving jobs for kids to offer inspiration for how to integrate your kids in fun, meaningful ways. Take a peek and then let us know: what other Thanksgiving jobs do your kids love to do?
1. Delegate a Dish
In Why Holiday Delegation Is Awesome, Christine describes 7 reasons to embrace Thanksgiving food delegation. Whether you’re hosting, contributing, or having a quiet day with immediate family only this year, let kids pick a dish that will be theirs to make and share.
If you feel like you need a little guidance, this How To Get Kids Cooking post has you covered.
Arranging hors d'oeuvres can be great for littles, while older kids might enjoy Building an Awesome Appetizer Board.
My daughter and I are pie-obsessed, and this year she has already staked a claim to baking our apple and pumpkin pies. Share these Tasty Pies To Try if your tween or teen has similar inclinations and ask which one they’d like to bake.
Speaking of baking, maybe this year a Thanksgiving cake could be in order. Use these 8 Tips for Baking Cakes With Kids to help.
Highlights has a list of 15 Kid-Friendly Thanksgiving Recipes you can check out.
Need more ideas? Look no further than your own family’s traditions. Teach your kids to make stuffing the way your mom always made it, or ask Grammy to show them how to make her famous pie crust cookies.
2. Meal Planning + Grocery Shopping
Grocery shopping with very young kids can be exhausting, especially around the holidays. To be honest, I used to dread it. But with my kids now 8 and 11, I can honestly say that those early years paid off. Bringing them along now actually saves me time, because we can divide and conquer our list together.
Christine’s post, 6 Grocery Store Skills to Teach Kids, has lots to say about making the most of any trip to the grocery store.
Let kids write the grocery list for the dish they will contribute to Thanksgiving dinner. Not writing letters yet? They can draw a short picture list. Elementary aged kids can practice their reading and writing skills by jotting down the ingredients for a particular recipe.
Turn your grocery list into a scavenger hunt at the store. Younger kids stay with you to snap up items on reachable shelves, while older kids can go on missions to find the items on their list.
Got a licensed teen driver in the family? Send that kiddo to the store independently! #momgoals
3. Creating a Simple, Creative, and Chic Table
Crafty kids will especially love these ideas, but those who are less into making art for the table can still get involved! When my very mechanically inclined son was little he never wanted to decorate the pretty name tags or paint the wooden napkin rings that his younger sister loved creating. But he ALWAYS wanted to take the lead in setting up the extra folding tables we brought up from the basement.
Older kids can independently make the easy, but unforgettable name cards that Christine posted about last year. For younger kids, be their scribe and let them tell you what to write. We guarantee that your guests will feel seen, loved, and appreciated.
Get outside to hunt and gather natural elements, then arrange them into a gorgeous centerpiece.
Create the placements, conversation cards, and thankful cards from this roundup of Free Thanksgiving Printables.
Kids of all ages can paint a set of wooden napkin rings or learn a bit of napkin origami to grace the table.
4. Get the House Company Ready
All of us at Boston Mamas believe in making sure kids grow up knowing how to keep a home clean. If you’re hosting the holiday, don’t hesitate to involve your whole family in a Speed Clean (or a deeper one if you have more time than I do right now!). Need some guidance about what kinds of tasks are appropriate for various ages? We love this Age-Appropriate Chores for Children chart. And if you’d like advice about cleaning with kids, check out 5 Home Cleaning Skills To Teach Kids and How to Get Kids To Do Chores, as well as Edit Your Life Episode 26: How To Get Kids To Do Chores.
5. Entertain and Engage
Some kids love to perform for friends and family. I loved hearing about the year Christine’s daughter Laurel made paper bag puppets for Thanksgiving guests, which they used to stage a puppet show all together in Episode 60: Less Is More Thanksgiving. Find out what ideas your kids have about holiday entertainment this year.
Older kids can organize other forms of family entertainment, too. They might want to use the printables in this post to run a round of Thanksgiving Bingo, offer up Thanksgiving Mad Libs, and organize a Backyard Scavenger Hunt. Or perhaps they’d prefer to lead everyone on an after-dinner neighborhood walk or choose a few games and puzzles to put out for the day. Ask for ideas and encourage them to take the lead.
6. Practice Generosity and Gratitude
Last year we offered to contribute to an organization in our kids’ names, and they decided to make their own contributions alongside ours. If this idea resonates, you could start by checking out some of the nonprofits that Boston Mamas has profiled recently.
Create a gratitude tree, write a gratitude journal, make a gratitude jar, or try one of the many ideas for practicing gratitude with kids we mentioned back in our Simple Ways to Celebrate the Fall Equinox post.
Thanksgiving jobs for kids: inspiration for how to integrate your kids in fun, meaningful ways