Potluck Thanksgiving Feast

This year our school did a Potluck Thanksgiving Feast. There was a little program where the children sang and played their recorders, and then we all ate! The idea was that each family would bring a dish that was traditional to them, either Thanksgiving-oriented or just a special dish from their culture, and that we would collect the recipes and the memory write-up that each family provided and make a small booklet to give to each family as a holiday gift. The feast was outstanding. There was such variety, and everything looked and smelled amazing. We ran out of plates, we ran out of forks, it was a huge hit! I didn't get to try nearly all the foods that I wanted to taste.

My girls and I made little turkey sandwiches with three slices of turkey on each (we formed a little assembly line where I cut the rolls and each girl added a slice and passed the sandwich along) and we brought Gingered Cranberry-Raisin Relish from Nicole Routhier's Fruit Cookbookas a condiment.




The students all helped make Pilgrim Hat Placecard Holders as we have many students with food allergies and each family was asked to submit their recipe beforehand so that we could type up an ingredient list and post the card by each dish. The buffet (four six-foot long tables) looked so charming with the little pilgrim hats sprinkled throughout. The students also made centerpieces for the tables at which we sat, by scooping out the center of small pumpkins and placing a piece of soaked florist foam inside them, then cutting and placing stems of fresh flowers into the foam. Every child made a pumpkin and we wrote their name on the bottom with a Sharpie; after the feast the families got to take the centerpieces home to decorate their own Thanksgiving tables. We covered the tables with plain white paper and provided crayons for the children to color while they were waiting to eat.

All in all, it was a very successful feast.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!