Last week, I wrote about making edible Pilgrim hats out of fudge striped shortbread cookies and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  My site stats show that lots of people are googling about these hats.  I’m happy that you folks like my idea.

At that time, I had plenty of cookies on hand to make hats to put by all of the plates of my Thanksgiving dinner guests.  But, somehow in the days that followed, the cookies disappeared one by one.  (Okay, Grandpa, fess up!  How many did YOU eat?  I only ate one.  Or two.  Or was it twelve?)

When I went to the store last Saturday to get more cookies, the shelf was bare.  I went back to the store last night.  Still no cookies.  What!  Are all of my readers shopping at my local grocery store buying out all of those cookies so I won’t have any for my own Pilgrim hats???  Luckily, I found some at the new grocery store in town.  Thank goodness!

If you are still looking for activities that you can do with your grandchildren on Thanksgiving and if you are new to this site, I thought that I would share some of the previous games I have written about:

• Candy Bar Game
• Candy Bar Game variation
• Zilch
• Panic card game
• Rhythm Cup game
• Matthew Mark Luke John

Lisa, over at Grandma Brief’s, writes about having a puzzle set out at Thanksgiving time with the goal to have it completed by Christmas.  I love that idea!  In the past, our family would have a puzzle up during the Christmas holidays.  So, doing one on Thanksgiving is a novel idea for me.  I think that this would be a great alternative for those dinner guests who don’t want to play Rock Band with me . . .

Hope you have a bond building, belly busting, soul satisfying wonderful Thanksgiving!

I hope I don’t make any enemies when I say this but I don’t like genealogy.  I do not care for searching and digging in dusty newspapers, mildewy microfiche, or crusty courthouse records for birth dates, marriage licenses, or death certificates.  Dates, dates, dates — B-O-R-I-N-G.

But the funny thing is that the random guy on the street or the stranger in the line at the grocery store seems to feel compelled to tell me their genealogy back to Adam.  What, do I have a sign on my back that says ‘Tell me your genealogy.  Every detail of it.’

However, the stories and the pictures are a horse of a different color.  Stories are more interesting than dates.  At least to me.  And, what a better time to share family stories than as your family gathers for Thanksgiving.

The Family Tree Kids! site has the goal of making family history fun.  (Good luck.)  One activity on their site explains how to make magnets of old family photos.  I really like this idea. Their directions on how to make these magnets is simple enough that I think my craft-challenged hands wouldn’t bungle this project too much.  Here is another site that gives good step by step instructions and plenty of ideas for pretty magnets.  The site Not Martha also has some really cute magnets.  (I like the mini tropical vacation one and the opaque Christmas ones — and I really identify with the title of her site because I am SO not Martha.)

Your grandchildren might enjoy hearing the stories of their ancestors as they make picture magnets of those folks.  I can’t think of a better way to have some fun while sharing family history.  But then I’m fun-challenged when it’s connected to genealogy.

You might want to contact some of your family members prior to Thanksgiving and ask them to bring copies of old photos that they could donate to the magnet-making project.  Or, maybe bring photos of current family members.  But better hurry.  Thanksgiving is just two days away.

In case you have cynical non-genealogist grandchildren (that are like me), they could use pictures of their friends to make a flock of magnets. Or use pictures from magazines, scrapbook paper, or possibly draw mini-portraits of friends or family to use.

My niece has these cute magnets on her fridge.  The top three are of her, her husband, and their son.  I think they are a hoot.

Maybe your grandchildren would want to bring their own school picture to use and give the magnet to you for your fridge.  Or they could take a picture of their pet before they come on Thanksgiving and use that picture for the magnet.

Maybe you could have a digital camera available for grandchildren to take candid photos of those family members who came to the Thanksgiving dinner.

If all else fails, maybe they could find pictures from places like fotopedia.com or picsearch.com.

This is an activity that is easy to prepare for and easy to do.  If you have an overly-stuffed-stomach after eating a scrumptious Thanksgiving meal, you can make a few magnets and then find a quiet place for a snooze..

Do you have some older grandchildren that you are wondering how you can entertain them on Thanksgiving Day? You might want to consider printing up some of these Thanksgiving paper crafts for them to make.

Christopher Bonnette has 2 turkey and 2 Pilgrim/Native American Indian paper crafts on his Macula website.  (When you log on, click on Downloads in his navigation on the left-hand side and then on Paper Craft.  Scroll across the gallery on the top of the page to find the Thanksgiving crafts.)

When you click on an image in the gallery, it brings up the pattern and instructions in the main part of your browser window.

Making these paper crafts takes skill with scissors and finger dexterity to fold and glue the paper so I don’t think that little grandchildren would be able to make them — unless they had lots of help from grandma.  However, I think the older ones could easily make these.  I plan on printing up a slew of them for after dinner activities.

You might want to bookmark this site because he also has a cute leprechaun, Easter bunny, Frankenstein, Santa, Christmas elves, and pirate.

Work with me here on this post, okay?

It will soon be Thanksgiving and you know how that can stress out a woman’s brain.  Today, you might think mine has taken the train to Topeka.  But it hasn’t.  It just wants to have a little fun.

Imagine it’s Thanksgiving.  Imagine that you’ve fixed the best Thanksgiving meal ever.  Kudos to you.  Now, imagine you gather your family around and dance the Funky Chicken.  Can’t imagine that?  No?  Well, Leroy, I certainly can — and it’s a hilarious sight to behold!

What is the funky chicken dance?  I’m glad you asked.  It’s one where you don’t have to worry about stepping on your partner’s toes or looking like you’ve won Dancing with the Stars.  All you do is act like a chicken in time with the music.  Watch this YouTube video to see how high school students did it in 1995.  It’s kinda blurry but you get the idea.

If you want to bust a gut laughing, watch the Lawrence Welk version.  Their hair and clothes style.  Oh my!  But watch for only a little bit to get the gist of the dance because they are as stiff as marionettes and don’t look like they are having any fun at all.  (They do give great instructions at the beginning though.)

Now, when you dance the funky chicken on Thanksgiving Day, do it with an at-ti-tude man.  Don’t be prim and proper like the Lawrence Welk folks.  Get into the dance.  Peck other chickens with your beak-hands as you dance.  Flap your chicken wings like there’s no tomorrow.  Wiggle you little tail feathers with gusto.  Bounce up and down.  Strut around.  You know, just like the chickens out back in your chicken coop.

I recommend that you download this midi file.  Go to http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/eltonjohn/561/indexwaltz.html and scroll part way down to find the chicken dance polka.  (I like this version because at the end it speeds up.  What a hoot to dance to.)  Right click on it and save it to your computer.  Then, burn it to a CD so you can pop it into your CD player for dancing (and also when you want to liven up Grandpa when he is Geritol-challenged).

Do you know how many times I listened to this song (my head a bobbin’ and toes a tappin’) while I typed this post?  4,398 times.  Love that song! Just makes me want to get up and do the funky chicken.  Ready Natalie?  Ready Spencer?  Let the dancing begin!!

(Note:  No rubber chicken was harmed in the making of this post.)