🦃 Friday Fun | Memories Around the Table

[Jodie]

Hey crafty friends!

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, a time when kitchens fill with laughter, the smell of pie, and the sound of stories being retold around the dinner table.

Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or have your own version of a family feast, these moments always carry a special warmth — gathering, cooking, sharing, and remembering together.

This Week, Let’s Share Family Feast Memories!

Family gatherings look different for everyone, maybe it’s a Thanksgiving dinner, a Christmas Eve feast, a Lunar New Year reunion, or a summer barbecue that brings everyone together.

Share us about those special moments when your family gathers around the table:

• When does your family usually come together for a big meal?
• What’s one dinner you’ll never forget?
• Who’s the cook everyone looks forward to (or the one who always burns something )?
• Do you exchange handmade gifts or crafts when you gather?

Share any story that’s meaningful to you. We’d love to hear your stories, photos, or small traditions that make your family’s gatherings so meaningful.

Reward: Everyone who joins will earn 30 Cheers, and 2 lucky participants will get a Permanent Adhesive Vinyl Roll - 12"x5 Ft (or a product of equal value).

Sharing ends on Monday, Nov 10

And don’t forget! Our thankful-makes Challenge is still happening! Create something inspired by gratitude, family, or Thanksgiving and join for a chance to win a $100 Gift Card!

Join here: 🍂 Join #ThankfulMakes Weekly Challenge! Win a $100 Gift Card this Thanksgiving!

Let’s fill the weekend with warmth, stories, and creativity — just like those family dinners that always bring us closer.

[Mary_Williams]

For most holidays, I cook and have immediate family over for dinner. However, my extended family has had a Christmas Eve tradition for at least 50 years, as long as I can remember.

It started with my grandparents, mom, her siblings and their children, my cousins, gathering together on Christmas Eve.

We’d have food, fun and fellowship. There is always some display of talent.

Over time some of the traditions changed. When I was younger, my mom always hosted at our home. Today, my cousins and I rotate hosting.

At one point we had five generations represented.

Last year I hosted. It’s the highlight of my year. It’s a time where a large porting of my family will gather together and make great memories.

This is my memorable holiday experience.

[prinsesaian]

sharing our first new year’s celebration as a family of 4

my husband is a great cook! and I’m the one who burns the food

[Jodie]

Aww, what a lovely family photo! A warm way to welcome 2025 together.

[amber_curtis]

I love today’s topic above all the others! This memory is my most dearest! Last thanksgiving my sister and I hosted a last minute family dinner because our mother had fallen sick and was in the hospital. It turned out to be the best thanksgiving dinner ! We rented a huge air bnb because our entire family actually made it last year from Chicago and Tennessee. All of them!! First time on a very long time we was all together for a holiday nd little did we know it was for the best that we did all make it! My mom was released that morning and she even forced herself to come join us that night too for dinner! She was continuously telling me how proud she was of that dinner and how great it was that I got the whole family together and how me came together and had such a beautiful spread of food made by each one of us! All at the last minute within just a few days because my mom usually hosted each year and my sister and I would help her. Little did we know we was losing my mom just two short weeks later so unexpected! Now looking back on that day I feel like she knew she wasn’t ok by how much she was hugging and stressing to us how proud she is of us (her 4 kids) and how we have grown into great humans. But that very dinner on that very night I will always always remember each and every little detail of! Was the best last memory I got to share with my beautiful kind loving mom. It will make this one a bit more difficult as it’s approaching.

[Jodie]

That‘s so sweet ! I love how your family has kept that Christmas Eve tradition alive for so many generations.

[Jodie]

@Amber_Curtis, thank you for sharing such a touching memory. I can feel how much love and strength your family shared that day, and how proud your mom must have been.

[DianeB]

My family and I usually gather for thanksgiving and Christmas and usually my mom makes a big meal for everyone however she’s found it recently more convenient to buy from local vendors because she also wants to enjoy the holidays without the stress of cooking. She buys tamales, or mole, she usually makes the pozole and then makes any other little sides we’re craving like corn on the cob or salad. We have a big meal but we have to keep a big appetite because the next day or the day before we visit my husband’s family and his mom usually cooks up a good meal of pozole rojo too or mole with rice and that’s always something I look forward too. My stomach is always full on thanksgiving and Christmas Day and eve. We open gifts on Christmas Eve night because Latinos celebrate the gift exchange on the 24th instead of Christmas morning. So after a long day of spending it with the family and having a great time eating and hanging out we open our gifts and then go to bed, have some well needed rest and then eat Recalentado (reheated leaftovers from the day before) for breakfast. Truly the best breakfast ever.

[misshaven]

When my little one arrived, our family members gather at our house every 15th of the month not for a big meal but to simply celebrate my little one’s monthly milestone.

For a big meal, usually it happens on Christmas Eve and New Years eve. Their favorite meal is spaghetti cooked by yours truly.

[Stephanie_Boone]

Big US holidays… we usually get together and I’m a sucker for sweet potato casserole this time of year

We don’t usually do handmade gifts though

[amber_curtis]

@Jodie Thank you! It was a very memorable day we all will carry for ever for sure and love that I’m more able to share this memory today . Took me a little while to get here and able to share. Thank you for this topic today! Was a big one for me!

[SarahiRubio]

For me, better things in life is being in Family and get special moments.
Now I live in Europe, and my brothers are in US and Honduras, my parents are in Honduras, for me is the most difficult part in life. But I always re Ever with a big smile our saturdays, and all Holidays in my Parent’s house, making a Lot of food, playing music, sometimes only talking or seing a movie but together. I believe that will be can posible One day!

[Judi_B]

Have you even gotten the aldi sweet potato casserole? It’s convenient and yummy!

[Judi_B]

My husband and I have simplified thanksgiving we tried for got togethers and stuff in the past just turned more into anxiety filled not relaxing time. I just get turkey breast bone in or other similar item to make for us ( we don’t really eat the dark meat and I hate waisting food so I get what we like) make mashed potatoes Aldi sweet potatoes casserole and cause my husband likes like green bean casserole I will make that for him. And I get jellied cranberry sauce for myself. It’s about being thanking we have each other we also make the dog her own mini plate or turkey and potatoes that’s honestly my favorite part the dog gets her own portion
Super simple enjoyable and that’s perfect for us.

Bonus my most memorable thanking meal was when I was about 14 maybe - my adoptive mom’s daughter who is my age had gone with her dad ( parents divorced) for another family members house. Her dad had a house not to far away easy co parenting. So we are working on thanksgiving just getting ready to put the turkey in the oven that was preheating…… well the oven never turned on no heat broken oven on thanksgiving…… well we pack up Mr Turkey and be turned to her ex husband’s house that no one was home at promptly broke into the house I tho k we found the hide a key or used a window. Turned on his oven and made our turkey and anything that needed to be in a oven their going to check on it every so often. Everything got done and we took it back to the proper house lol.

I have had some crazy thanksgiving but while in the military hosted & co hosted so AWSOME thanksgivings.

[Stephanie_Boone]

Oh no! I’ll have to try it!

[99YearsCreations]

I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s really hard losing your mom, I get it. Sending hugs.

[Samantha_Bryant]

My Thanksgivings are pretty boring, these days. I live in Texas and my family live 1000 miles away in Tennessee. So, I usually just cook for my husband and myself. My birthday is on the 23rd, so, every 4-9 years I celebrate my birthday on Thanksgiving. I was a turkey baby, as I was born 2 days before Thanksgiving 1982. I always enjoy when my birthday falls on Thanksgiving, as I get to have my cake and turkey, too!

[Simply_Shantoya]

Christmas 2024 my sister had her daughter December 5th and my miracle baby December 16th. On Christmas Eve we went to my mom’s house and stayed the night but not before I went to the ER. I felt horrible and my blood pressure was high. The hospital sent me home I pressed all my families holiday tshirts but spent Christmas mostly asleep. By that evening I was back in the hospital because I had developed eclampsia postpartum and had to spend 5 days back in the hospital. It took 5 days to regulate my body again. I can’t believe still that was able to do our family tshirts with they way I felt. -uploaded image goes here-

[redhada]

This weekend something truly special happened, perfectly fitting the Family Feast Memories theme.

For years I have been building my extended family tree , gathering information and trying to bring order and facts beyond the usual family legends, those stories about ancestors that sound fascinating but do not always match or make sense. Some details turn into locked enigmas, branches that refuse to open upwards in time.

During this weekend at my parents’ house, between long after-dinner conversations and a laptop with online tools, I hoped to unlock one of those dead ends. Then, my father suddenly brought out a small treasure: some official documents from my grandparents and uncles, both on his side and my mother’s. Thanks to those yellowed golden papers, I could finally confirm some dates and places, and with them, several missing links fell into place.

It felt almost like playing Minesweeper and revealing half the board with one click, or finding a diamond vein in Minecraft. A couple of key ancestors connected my family tree to other partial trees created by unknown relatives before me, completing pieces I had never been able to match. Those discoveries also led me to find new records in online archives, opening even more paths for research and connection.

But beyond the data, the experience itself was magical. Holding those old documents, fragile and brown like ancient scrolls, felt like being in an archaeological lab, touching time itself. Each new discovery brought those people back to life for a moment, bridging the past and who we are today.

Among them all, one record stood out, the census sheet of my great-grandfather Casimiro’s family from 1915’s Madrid city census.

That was a form filled out by the head of the family in his own handwriting, in a time when people still wrote with quills and ink. As someone who loves lettering, I found it wonderful to see such a beautiful living document, with elegant handwriting and ink so aged it almost looked golden. Truly beautiful and filled of a beautiful private story and details.

It was a weekend filled with clues, logic, and emotion, a family puzzle finally revealing part of its hidden picture. That kind of sweet family nights we live more often as Christmas comes closer.

[Judi_B]

That exciting!