Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and by now you’ve probably got your hands full buying ingredients and trying to get things ready. Sure would be nice to have a hand with some of this, but maybe everyone else has work or school, or maybe you feel like your kids are too young to help out (or just plain not interested!). Fear not! For kids of any age, there’s always a task or two you can give them to help lighten your load and make them feel like they’re helping! Trust us, for kids around the holidays, you’ll be surprised how much they’ll enjoy pitching in to lend a hand! Kid-Safe Food Preparation Sure, you won’t necessarily want your kids trying to help with the hot oven or anything, but there’s still plenty of things they can do in the kitchen to help out! Make sure you have enough counter space or appropriately-sized kitchen carts to give the kids their own place to help out, and pass a few dishes their way! If you’re making your own bread or pie crust, kids could help to knead bread dough or lay out pie crust before the filling is added, or maybe they could cut out cookies for dessert using their favorite cookie cutters. If you’re laying out an appetizer tray with crackers and cheese, maybe you could let them set out the crackers or pick what cheeses are used. Older kids (or any kid that you can let use sharper utensils) could easily cut vegetables or help handle cleaning the dishes as needed. Decorations and Place Settings If your children are a little more creatively inclined, then there’s plenty they could do to make the house more festive! Let them make little craft decorations to place on your coffee table, maybe they could draw and write their own holiday cards to give to guests or send out in the mail to relatives who can’t make it, and when dinner time rolls around let them put out something easy like the silverware or napkins so they feel like they’re helping with the big day! Help Organize Their Toys While it seems like kids never seem to want to help clean, you’d be surprised how quickly that can change when they find out company is coming over. If you lay out a few storage bins to let the kids collect all their toys and belongings from the front room to make it easier, your kids will be happy to make sure their parts of the house looks nice enough for grandma and grandpa, or whoever might be coming over. Trust us, it’ll help - if kids know they’re doing something important, they’ll respond much more positively than you might expect. These are only a few of the steps that you could take to let your kids help around the house - let your imagination run wild, and they’ll be glad for the chance to help!