Thanksgiving
Ideas, Recipes, Decorations, & more for your Thanksgiving Celebration
Whether you celebrate Friendsgiving, Thanksgiving, or simply a harvest festival, this is a festive time of year to gather with friends and family and to pause to be thankful for all. Our real blessings aren’t on the table — they are the loved ones far and near who gather around our table or over Zoom or in our hearts. And there is real joy in celebrating each other — together.
I enjoy celebrating every holiday, and Thanksgiving marks a wonderful transition from the fun of Halloween into the joy of the Christmas season in our home. I don’t decorate for Christmas until the weekend after Thanksgiving. This is an intentional pause for me — a time to stop, live in gratitude, and savor the time before jumping into the bustling Christmas season.
I have gathered some resources here for you as you think about celebrating Thanksgiving — ideas and projects, recipes and more — that may stir your heart and make your celebration easier and more fulfilling. I hope they are helpful as you make the preparations in your own home.
Making A Festive Home
Making Fall Leaves from Book Pages
Create simple and easy decorations for your holiday table from the pages of an old book.
DIY Paper Bag Table Runner
Upcycle a few paper grocery bags into a table runner that’s easy to customize.
Simple Feather Centerpieces
These centerpieces are easy to make and very inexpensive.
Getting Organized
Here are some free downloads that can help you get organized for your holiday meals! Additionally, The Nice List includes a calendar and planner pages for both November and December — allowing you to organize the whole season in one place, so check it out!
Use this easy printable to plan all of your holiday feasts and festivities. Best when combined with The Nice List Grocery List and, of course, The Nice List!
This Library used to be entirely free. Because of the rising costs of maintaining this website, I have moved to charging a very small fee — $1 or $2 — for some of the Library resources. Thank you for contributing to my work by choosing to pay for those resources.
If you found these resources from an older Pinterest Pin, the pin might indicate that this was a free download. That’s the nature of Pinterest! Again, thanks for your support!
Use this easy printable to plan all of your holiday feasts and festivities. Best when combined with The Nice List Grocery List — also a free download — and, of course, The Nice List!
Paper is better! Studies confirm that over and over. So make your grocery lists on paper, and reduce the number of trips you need to make to the store. Use this in combination with the Meal and Seasonal Favorites Planners, and you’ll have the yummiest holiday season ever!
This Library used to be entirely free. Because of the rising costs of maintaining this website, I have moved to charging a very small fee — $1 or $2 — for some of the Library resources. Thank you for contributing to my work by choosing to pay for those resources.
If you found these resources from an older Pinterest Pin, the pin might indicate that this was a free download. That’s the nature of Pinterest! Again, thanks for your support!
Paper is better! Studies confirm that over and over. So make your grocery lists on paper, and reduce the number of trips you need to make to the store. Use this in combination with the Meal and Seasonal Favorites Planners, and you’ll have the yummiest holiday season ever!
This Library used to be entirely free. Because of the rising costs of maintaining this website, I have moved to charging a very small fee — $1 or $2 — for some of the Library resources. Thank you for contributing to my work by choosing to pay for those resources.
If you found these resources from an older Pinterest Pin, the pin might indicate that this was a free download. That’s the nature of Pinterest! Again, thanks for your support!
This listing is for The Nice List Christmas Workbook + The Nice List All Year.
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Free Gift with Purchase: The Nice List books are designed so that they can be used in a Traveler’s Notebook -- a simple way to keep them together. For a Limited Time we will include a FREE handmade, upcycled traveler’s notebook with each purchase of The Nice List Bundle (while supplies last).
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Christmas is a busy time, particularly for parents. With school performances, parties, shopping, baking, and decorating on top of the normal busyness of life, I know many people find the Christmas season to be… overwhelming.
But it doesn’t have to be.
Over the years I have developed a system that helps me stay on budget, on time, and sane! And now with The Nice List, I am sharing that system with you so you can have a more organized and more beautiful Christmas season.
The Nice List Bundle includes two separate notebooks:
The Nice List All Year: a gift-giving tracker to last for years to come
The Nice List Christmas Workbook: a planner for the entire Christmas season to keep you organized and help bring a little sanity to your holiday season
Both are available individually or together as a bundle.
The Nice List Christmas Workbook includes:
How to Use The Nice List
How to Use The Christmas Workbook
November Calendars: weekly and monthly (undated)
December Calendars: weekly and monthly (undated)
Weekly To Do Lists for November and December (undated)
What Sparks Joy for You? Setting priorities for the holiday season
Budgeting worksheets: to establish a budget for your Christmas season — and for each gift, too
Coupons & Codes: tracker for holiday sales and discount codes
Giving Lists: to help you prioritize where you spend you money and on whom
Thoughts on Thoughtful Giving: ideas for gift giving and reducing the stress of the holidays
Thank You Note Tracker
Holiday Card Tracker
Menu Planners
Baking Planners
Shopping Lists
Blank pages for notes and planning
With a little planning and some careful thought before a gift is ever purchased, The Nice List can help you keep Christmas from spinning out of control and help you find the perspective you need. The Nice List helps you set deadlines to avoid high shipping charges and has a tool for tracking all of those promo codes and sale codes that start to flood your email inbox, too.
The Nice List All Year gives you a place to track all of the gifts you give the loved ones in your life -- not just at Christmas time. It is designed to be used for multiple years and can be purchased separately if you have more than 15 people in your life to track.
The Nice List All Year includes:
How to use The Nice List
How to use The Nice List All Year
Giving Records for 15 people covering multiple years
The Nice List All Year is also designed to be used by anyone -- not just people who celebrate Christmas. From Hanukkah to Lunar New year, Kwanzaa to Eid, and birthdays, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and more -- record every gift you give and make notes for coming occasions, too.
Plus, when you use The Nice List All Year year after year, you develop a record of your gift-giving, so you never give the same gift twice!
Not only is The Nice List a beautiful planner, but it also comes with online tools including an extensive giving guide with gift suggestions in every budget for every person on your list — parents, inlaws, kids, friends, teachers. We have suggestions for them all and exclusive discount codes as well.
I love the Christmas season so much I have written what my husband described as my “love letter to Christmas” — The Nice List!
Order your copy of The Nice List today, and give yourself the gift of a very organized and holiday season!
LET'S BE FRIENDS!
Check out our shop:
INSTAGRAM: @owlandember / @midmodernmama and @messymamaholly
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/owlandember
A NOTE ABOUT RISOGRAPH PRINTING:
Garden Notes is produced using a Japanese Risograph printing duplicator. Imagine an old-fashioned printing press and a fancy copy machine had a baby -- that’s the Risograph. Each color of soy-based ink is laid down separately -- like a printing press -- on rich, toothy paper. Like screen printing, each page must dry completely before the next color is applied -- a process which takes days.The soy inks are applied like paint, and occasionally some smudging may occur. This is to be expected. And as with any handmade product, imperfections are part of the charm! The result is a beautifully printed, handmade product with rich colors and an artistic feel.Owl and Ember produces each printed product in small batch runs at our headquarters in Menlo Park, California. All Owl and Ember products are printed on FSC Certified papers.If for any reason, you are dissatisfied with your purchase, please contact us so that we can make it right.
ABOUT THE CREATORS:
Angela K. Nickerson (@midmodernmama), author, and Holly Kennedy (@messymamaholly), designer, both love office supplies, planners, stickers, and creative living. They have been producing The Nice List, their first journal product, since 2016 and have been collaborating on projects big and small for almost 15 years. Together they are @owlandember and owlandember.com.
All designs © Angela K. Nickerson and Holly Kennedy, 2015-2025
Reproduction rights do not transfer with sale of items.
Recipes & Menu Ideas
I am not a food blogger, but from time to time I do share recipes that are particularly good — especially around the holidays. Here are a few that are great at Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving.
World’s Best Pumpkin Pie
Easy & Delicious Cranberry Relish
Giving Thanks
Whether you are the host or a guest, giving thanks is part of the season. Here are a few ideas for making gratitude part of your November.
Host and Hostess Gift Ideas
How to Write a Fabulous Thank You Note
Thanks a Thousand
DESCRIPTION:
- Handmade and available in limited quantities
- Created thematically: each theme is different, and every Rambler varies
- 40 blank pages | 20 spreads
- Sprinkled with selected inserts including vintage papers, Riso-printed pages, pockets and pouches, and any number of other inserts depending on the theme and availability of materials
- Printed on 70# paper – thick paper with a good tooth that holds ink well
AVAILABLE IN ONE SIZE:
- A6 (105 mm x 148 mm or 4” x 6”)
- As this is a handmade item, the books vary slightly by size depending on trimming conditions
Like all of the Owl & Ember notebooks, The Rambler is designed to fit in a traveler’s notebook cover and is available in the common A6 size, but it works independently as well.
MORE ABOUT THE RAMBLER:
The Rambler is a simple blank notebook: a place to make notes, to journal, to art journal, or to plan. Its small size makes it perfect for your Daily Pages practice or a simple bullet journal. It isn’t truly a junk journal – we don’t like the word “junk.” But it is sprinkled with odd-sized pages sometimes cut from vintage books, sometimes upcycled from packaging, sometimes including decorative papers or Riso-printed patterns.
Angela, one half of Owl and Ember, makes each Rambler by hand in limited-edition batches. They are inspired by materials she finds – often upcycled or repurposed. She uses The Rambler daily for her daily journaling and art journaling practice and chooses materials which will work for a range of purposes.
The blankness makes The Rambler a great place to dig in, but the scattered surprises within the pages create opportunities for creative inspiration and discoveries, too.
Each limited edition series is produced by hand, and once they are sold out, they are gone! But a new series will be coming soon – and you never know what the next batch will contain.
__________________________________________
LET'S BE FRIENDS!
Check out our shop:
INSTAGRAM: @owlandember / @midmodernmama and @messymamaholly
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/owlandember
A NOTE ABOUT RISOGRAPH PRINTING:
Garden Notes is produced using a Japanese Risograph printing duplicator. Imagine an old-fashioned printing press and a fancy copy machine had a baby -- that’s the Risograph. Each color of soy-based ink is laid down separately -- like a printing press -- on rich, toothy paper. Like screen printing, each page must dry completely before the next color is applied -- a process which takes days.The soy inks are applied like paint, and occasionally some smudging may occur. This is to be expected. And as with any handmade product, imperfections are part of the charm! The result is a beautifully printed, handmade product with rich colors and an artistic feel.Owl and Ember produces each printed product in small batch runs at our headquarters in Menlo Park, California. All Owl and Ember products are printed on FSC Certified papers.If for any reason, you are dissatisfied with your purchase, please contact us so that we can make it right.
ABOUT THE CREATORS:
Angela K. Nickerson (@midmodernmama), author, and Holly Kennedy (@messymamaholly), designer, both love office supplies, planners, stickers, and creative living. They have been producing The Nice List, their first journal product, since 2016 and have been collaborating on projects big and small for almost 15 years. Together they are @owlandember and owlandember.com.
All designs © Angela K. Nickerson and Holly Kennedy, 2015-2025
Reproduction rights do not transfer with sale of items.