Build A Turkey
The pieces work as parts rather than finished pictures: a body, a set of feathers, a beak, a pair of feet. A child can lay out a fat turkey on a sheet of construction paper, then a second one that looks nothing like the first. Older children add pumpkins and leaves around it. Nothing has to dry, so the finished picture goes straight onto the refrigerator.
Place Cards For Dinner
Place cards are the small job that never gets done in time. Write the names on folded card in the morning, hand the stack and a sheet of stickers to a child, and the table has something personal at every setting by the time the food is ready. The same trick works on napkin rings, on the paper covering a children's table, and on a jar of preserves going to a host.
Something For The Waiting
The hour between arriving and eating is the difficult one at a family gathering. A sheet each keeps cousins who barely know one another working on the same thing at one end of the table, within sight of the adults and out from underfoot in the kitchen. When dinner is called, the sheets go into a drawer and come out again after the pie has been cut.
School And Friendsgiving Tables
Twenty-four sheets covers a classroom, a Friendsgiving with a crowd or a church hall, and it lasts across several years of smaller gatherings. The material is non-toxic and does not smell of solvent when the pack is opened, and the printed colors keep their depth on a window catching low autumn sun. Sheets sit flat in a folder with the rest of the holiday supplies.
