Thanksgiving is a tradition deep-rooted in the founding culture of America, and it’s a time to give thanks for the bountiful harvest and the many blessings that we enjoy every year. Now, every family celebrates a bit differently. Some congregate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Others meet just for supper, and then retire to the TV room for football. Yet most families tend to share one thing: If your family is like millions of others in America, then you probably spend at least one Thanksgiving meal around a long table, surrounded by those you hold dearest (as well as a spread of mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls, and, of course, turkey). And often, that long table could sit maybe twenty or thirty people (or more!). As such, it’s become a tradition for many of us to create name places for all the attendees, alongside centerpieces for the Thanksgiving table. If that’s one of the traditions that your family carries out every year, then we have a few ideas that you can consider for this years festivities — here are some fun, creative name place ideas to consider this coming Turkey Day!

Origami Name Places

If you have a knack for origami, or you’d like to learn the art, then Thanksgiving provides a unique opportunity to create origami name places for the dinner table. Create any number of creatures, flowers, and objects. You can create crane name places, frog name places, foxes, you name it.

There are hundreds of free guides online, like origami.me, where you’ll find simple, easy to follow instructions on how to craft simple, yet elegant origami pieces. Once you’ve created enough pieces for everybody at the table, you can scribe everyone’s name on each individual paper sculpture.

Or, if you’re feeling especially creative, you can create a seperate key with the animals you’ve crafted, alongside the names of your Thanksgiving dinner attendees.

Scrabble® Tile Name Places

Is it a coincidence that “thank you” is seven letters? If you’re a Scrabble fanatic, then you’ll love this one. Simply grab a few sets of Scrabble (you might have to ask a few friends for extra sets if you have a lot of people coming to the festivities), and utilize the Scrabble tiles and tile-holders to quickly create name places for each of your relatives. If you don’t have enough tile-holders to go around, you can create your own by folding a note card, or you can simply lay the tiles down right on the tablecloth.

Your family members will love playing with the tiles throughout the meal, arranging their own names into creative, silly anagrams. Plus, at the end of the meal, you can start a few impromptu games of Scrabble as folks switch from turkey to pumpkin pie.

Wine Glass Charms

Plenty of adults at the party? If your Thanksgiving plates are accompanied by wine glasses, then you can create custom wine glass charms to show where everyone is sitting (and who’s drinking the wine in the glass). You can even create wine glass charms for the kiddos, just be sure to give them non-alcoholic sparkling cider, grape juice, or something similar.
You can find wine charm rings online for fairly cheap, and then customize those rings with trinkets and beads that spell out someone’s name. You can also create wine charms that double as bracelets. Just purchase stretchy bracelet string, a bag of beads, and start crafting!

Many Thanks From Fred Lake

Well, we hope that our ideas help you to make the most out of the day of thanks. We appreciate our readers and customers, and we’re grateful to be able to provide stamps and other creative tools so that you can make your holidays memorable. Happy Thanksgiving, and join us soon for another article!