After-Turkey Oblivion and How to Avoid It
It is the meal that we wait all year for; the one for which we spend countless days and hours finding recipes, buying ingredients and preparing to share with our families. All of this time and effort climaxes with a few hours spent gathered ‘round the dinner table, everyone stuffing their faces with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.
Then there’s that awkward moment where drowsy tryptophan-induced faces stare at each other across the table; nobody quite knows what to do next.
Is it just time to clean up, go home, and sleep it off?
Absolutely not! There are plenty of ways to salvage the rest of the evening.
Card games are a family-fun classic. Uno, Crazy 8’s, Gin-Rummy, Go Fish, Blackjack, and Old Maid are just a few that most of your guests will know how to play.
Bicycle Cards even has a free app, available in the ITunes store, which gives you the rules to over seventy-five different card games.
Another thing you’re bound to have around the house, and are very affordable if you don’t, are board games. This is a great way to get the family involved and laughing together, but may not be the best fit for those with super competitive relatives.
Apples to Apples is an easy to play game where all players are dealt a hand of red cards, each card containing a noun. Each player gets a chance to be the judge, and on their turn draws an adjective from the green card deck. Then all players can put down the best-fitting noun in their hand. The judge decides which match will win. The answers can be funny, serious, or out of this world.
Other board games that are sure to provide a fun night for all include Monopoly, Yahtzee, Dominos, Sorry, Clue and Twister.
Often overlooked is the opportunity to count your blessings after Thanksgiving Dinner. One way to make this a fun activity is to cut out some leaves from colored paper and have each person participating write one thing he or she is thankful for. Afterwards, everyone can hang them up on a poster-board or wall, in the shape of a tree. Now you have an original craft to display in your home for the holidays.
Another classic game used to remember thanks for all the good things in your life is called “Thankercheif”. In this game, a song is recited while players pass a handkerchief around. The song goes:
Thankerchief, thankerchief, around you go –
Where you’ll stop, nobody knows.
But when you do, someone must say,
What they are thankful for this day.
Happy Home Fairy describes a game called “Name that Turkey Tune”. In this game, each player takes a turn “crooning” familiar songs, with all words replaced by “Gobble Gobble”. Other players call out the name of the tune until somebody gets it right.
Watching a movie together is a fantastic way to end the night, especially if everyone is too full to participate in activities. You can watch classic thanksgiving movies like “Pocahontas”, “New World”, or “Home for the Holidays”; you can also watch new movies recently released on DVD and Blu Ray, such as “Maleficent”, “Despicable Me 2”, or “Let’s Be Cops”.
If you have lots of children at your Thanksgiving Dinner, a scavenger hunt may be their favorite part of the day.
Simply print out some turkeys and hide them around the house, then assemble the kids and let them run around finding the hidden turkeys. You may even want to give the one or two children who found the most turkeys a prize.
One last game that is fun for all is “Who am I?”. In this game, everyone gets a card taped to their forehead with a name of any person written on it. Each person gets 20 “yes” or “no” questions before they get to guess who they are.
With all of these great ideas, your Thanksgiving night should be fun and filled with precious moments to be remembered for years to come.
Just remember, the night isn’t over once dinner has been eaten.
Have a Gobbledy Great time!