11/17/06

LESS IS MORE


I believe less is more.

No party is out of reach including Thanksgiving Day! It requires skillful planning (I love lists!) that includes portions of the dinner be made ahead of time and delegation to each family attending.

I recently traveled to Madison, WI (see photo of my husband and me with the gracious Wiedenbeck clan) and my friend Barb had bought a slew of magazines for the guest room. On every cover were titles such as, “Easiest Ever Thanksgiving,” “Countdown to Turkey Day,” “75 Creative Ideas for a Stress-free Season.” They all had one theme in mind: organization and planning ahead.

Taking it one step further, my goal for organization is to have less time in the kitchen, which allows more time with guests, enjoying their company, creating deeper friendships, and forming stronger bonds. And greeting my guests at the door with a smile on my face that is real!

Yesterday I had my FaithGirlz group at my house making Turkey Place Cards for their Thanksgiving Dinners. These 8 girls were so creative with their finger art.
The materials were simple: brown inkpad, blank place cards & makers. How easy can you get? They were so excited to take their creations home to help decorate their Thanksgiving table.

I convey to these girls constantly that what matters in life is God and people. And a mother’s dream is to have their child’s artistic flare come through at a family meal! Which reminds me of a quote I read by Helen Keller:

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”

HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY PLANNING! Remember less is more!

4 comments:

Barb said...

Hey Chickie, you Happy Coughlins are welcome here anytime! Y'all definitely made things brighter for our family!
I loved involving my kids with the holidays when they were young, teaching them to cook or doing crafty things with them. Now the girls make most of the meal with my husband while the boys and I do extraneous things like helping to set the table. Once we involved the kids in the preparations, they just naturally began helping with clean-up afterward also. It's a wonderful thing to have my kids be more competent than I am on holidays!

Barb said...

PS--Are you gonna give us an organizational timeline for how you're gonna pull off a smooth Thanxgiving at your house?

Sandy said...

Well, without creating a whole new blog .. this is what I've done so far: 1)planned the menu 2)deligated the dishes 3)bought the turkey 4)did my major grocery shopping 5)planned in my mind what my table will look like, made up my centerpieces.
Then I work backwards from THURS AM and will make a list with M, T, W, TH. I will then think of everything that needs to be done and put it on the appropriate day to get done. My goal is to have everything done as much as possible by Wed. night. Including the house being cleaned which the family will help out with.
Hope it goes smoothly! :)

Barb said...

You're SO organized! Any wild and crazy dishes this year, or are you sticking with traditional stuff? Sweet Potato Cheesecake perhaps???