Thanksgiving is a time to come together with family and friends, reflect on what you're grateful for, and enjoy some delicious food. If you're lucky enough to be RVing during the holiday season, why not celebrate Thanksgiving on the road? You don't have to skimp on the fun just because you are traveling!
There are plenty of fun activities the whole family can enjoy while RVing. In fact, traveling during Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to create some fun new holiday traditions. Our family loves to party in our RV and has you covered with fun and easy ideas to make this Thanksgiving one to remember. Check out these family-friendly activities for your crew this Thanksgiving.
Guest Post and Photos By The Adventure Detour
Holiday Traditions are a Big Deal to Most Kids
As adults, many of us could easily just swap out travel activities for a holiday and call it good. Kids, however often really love holiday activities and hold tight to traditions that the family has made over the years. And if you haven't made any holiday traditions yet for Thanksgiving as a family, then creating some on the road can make your RV trip even more exciting and memorable! You can have both the fun of RV traveling and celebrating Thanksgiving with these easy ideas.
Macy's Thanksgiving Parade
It's a tradition in our household to start Thanksgiving morning by watching the Macy's parade on TV. We enjoy voting on our favorite floats in the parade each year. We also have something fun and easy for breakfast while we watch. I am often the no fun health food parent so for our family, it is usually a sweet treat breakfast like cinnamon rolls that we don't normally indulge in. Any easy out-of-the-ordinary breakfast is fun to enjoy during the parade. I also begin the prep for our Thanksgiving meal while we watch the parade so I can enjoy the day without spending it all in the kitchen.
Peanuts Thanksgiving Party
After the parade is over, we switch into party mode. We love the Peanuts Thanksgiving show and turn that into our party theme. They even have Peanuts Thanksgiving party decorations online at Oriental Trading Company or you can decorate simply with orange balloons and streamers. You can even have the kids help decorate and draw pumpkins or funny faces on the balloons for the party.
Often we have watched the Peanuts Thanksgiving show during the week but if we haven't yet, then we will watch it at the beginning of our little party. Then we have our own Friendsgiving just like in the show. We invite our "friends", which are often dolls and stuffed animals, to our party with toast, popcorn, and jellybeans just like in the show. Kids really get a kick out of eating the same foods as the Peanuts do and it's all so simple to make!
Easy Crafts
As part of our party, we love to do an easy craft or two as activities. You could also do any of these activities the day or week before Thanksgiving. The kids will love it no matter how the activities work into your schedule. You can take the crafts outside at your campsite to keep the mess down.
Our must-do craft each year is a thankfulness activity. We make a paper craft where the cut-out paper pieces are each something we are thankful for. We have made both trees and turkeys for this craft over the years. Either version is fun and if you don't want to cut out the shapes, then feel free to just draw it on a piece of paper and have the kids color it in.
For the thankful tree, you can cut out the shape of a tree trunk and lots of colored leaf shapes from construction paper. Paste the trunk down on a piece of paper. Then have the kids write something they are thankful for on each leaf. Once they are finished they can paste the leaves all over the tree. We actually write the year on our tree and keep it because it's precious to go back and see what each person was thankful for over the years.
You can also do this same thankfulness craft using a turkey. Cut a simple turkey body from construction paper for each member of your family. Also, cut out many colored long skinny turkey feathers to go with each turkey. Have the kids write what they are thankful for on each feather and glue it to their turkey. You can make each turkey have some personality too by adding googly eyes, a hair bow, or a bow tie. If you have a hard time making the turkey's body shape, feel free to just trace your hand for a simple turkey. Anything goes with this!
Other easy craft ideas are crayon leaf rubbings and painting pinecones or acorns to use as your Thanksgiving dinner centerpiece. Kids love to find natural items outside. Letting them paint or even paint and glitter their findings makes it fun and special to create the meal decor. We have often painted pinecones and then turned them into pinecone people with googly eyes, pipe cleaner arms, and construction paper hats. We often just dump some craft supplies out and see what our daughter comes up with. It doesn't have to be anything organized but it is fun to see what they create.
Thanksgiving Book
Something we love to do during the party is to read a book about Thanksgiving. I often do this while my daughter is working on her crafts. This way we squeeze in a little bit of learning into the fun. Books we love are The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh, If You Were At The First Thanksgiving by Anna Kamma, and The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks by Stan and Jan Berenstain.
Scavenger Hunt
We often print off free scavenger hunt clue printables from Pinterest. Just search free Thanksgiving scavenger hunt or even just free scavenger hunt and you will find some good options. You can have the scavenger hunt inside or outside depending on the weather and space you have. It's fun to put a little surprise at the end for the kids to find.
Decorate Pre-Made Cookies
Have you ever seen pre-baked cookie decoration kits at Wal-Mart or the grocery store? The kits usually have pumpkin-shaped cookies with icing tubes and sprinkles, all ready to take home and start decorating. We love these kits because they let kids have the fun of decorating cookies without tying up the kitchen. We often do this outside on the picnic table.
Coloring Tablecloth
The best way to keep kids busy once you start cooking the meal is to get a Thanksgiving tablecloth to color. We have usually found this at Target with the Thanksgiving paper goods. It is plastic or paper and looks just like a coloring book but the size of a tablecloth. This is simple but so much fun that we also usually join in to help color.
Thanksgiving Dinner Conversation Cards
Thanksgiving is definitely not the meal to rush through and quickly hop up from the table. Why not have some fun and linger a little while you eat? One way to do this is to print off fun dinner conversation cards or would you rather cards for your Thanksgiving meal. Search Pinterest for free Thanksgiving conversation starters and you will find many options to print off to make your meal a little more fun.
Thanksgiving Night Fun
After everyone has stuffed themselves and is completely worn out, consider capping off the fun day with a movie night or game night. Or maybe even end the night by switching into Christmas mode. You could hop in the car, blast some Christmas music, and drive around looking for holiday lights. I often do a search online for the best holiday light displays in the city where we are staying.
I hope this post has inspired you to make some new family memories this Thanksgiving while RV traveling. Just because you are on the road doesn't mean you have to skip holiday fun. With a few simple decorations and supplies, you can pull off a day the whole family will remember. Happy Thanksgiving!
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Scott, his wife Van, and their 12-year-old daughter Sissy have traveled full-time in their RV for 7 years. They have worked and homeschooled on the road through 42 states so far. They blog about RVing tips, travel destinations, and the full-time RV lifestyle on their blog, TheAdventureDetour.com. They are also RV content creators @theadventuredetour on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. They love connecting with RVers so be sure to reach out to them and say hi!
