Creative Decor to Spark Conversation at Your Thanksgiving Dinner Table

Thanksgiving is a time for gathering family and friends around the dinner table to enjoy turkey and conversation. Many families begin the meal by talking about all that they are thankful for in their lives. Set your Thanksgiving table so that your guests will keep the conversation going during and after the meal as well.

Serve up a dish that is native to a foreign country. Many countries have their own special celebrations that can be compared to the American tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving. Serve a dish from one of these countries as a conversation piece for your Thanksgiving table. Countries such as China and Greece have their own celebrations which involve giving thanks. Share your knowledge of these celebrations as well as other facts about the country you choose. Not only does this create a nice conversation piece for your Thanksgiving table, but guests may be able to learn something new and interesting about a different culture.

Create your own Thanksgiving placemats with the help of your kids. You and your children can create beautiful and informative placemats by using craft paper and clear contact paper. Your kids can draw Thanksgiving related pictures for each placemat, such as pilgrims, turkeys, or even cornucopias. Kids can include fun facts about turkeys on the placemats. For some fun facts about turkeys you can click here. Another option would be to include fun facts about Thanksgiving, such as "Over 40 million green bean casseroles make it to the Thanksgiving table each year.". For more fun facts you can visit this link. You could also play a Thanksgiving trivia game with guests by including questions about the holiday, the pilgrims, the turkey, and other related questions on the front of the placemat. Have your guests guess the answers to the questions. After dinner guests can flip the placemat over to read the answers to their questions that you have written on the back.

Share favorite recipes with your family this Thanksgiving. You can type up and then print your favorite recipes onto special Thanksgiving themed paper to share with your guests. Laminate the recipe so that it won't become soiled with food or greasy fingers. You can provide a different recipe for each guest and place them under their napkins and silverware. Guests can pass the different recipes around for the other guests to look at. These recipes can create conversations between guests and make a great take home gift.

The breaking of the wishbone is a long standing Thanksgiving tradition. I know that in my family, this is an after dinner activity that we always look forward to. You can create a new Thanksgiving tradition for your family when it comes to who gets to break the wishbone. When you wrap your silverware in your napkin, include a turkey in two of them. You can choose a turkey sticker to place on the inside of the napkin where no one can see it. After you fold up all of the silverware in the napkins, mix them up so that you won't remember which napkins contain the two turkeys. Inform your guest about the turkey hiding inside of two of the napkins and what they mean. This is a great way of deciding who gets the wishbone without any arguing.

When choosing a tablecloth for your Thanksgiving table you can choose a solid light colored fabric one. Place a clear plastic sheet on top of the tablecloth to avoid staining it. Set out different colored fabric markers at each place setting for each guest to use. After dinner is done, your guests can scribble on the fabric tablecloth with words of thanks, turkeys made by tracing their hands, and anything else they'd like to write. You now have a special tablecloth you can use for future Thanksgiving dinners which can become a family heirloom as well as a great conversation piece.

This Thanksgiving why not take the time to engage in conversation with your guests by using these ideas for Thanksgiving table conversation pieces. It will give your guests something to talk about well after dinner is over.