You’re busy with the last of the harvest and putting up your preserves, all while preparing for the holildays. Me, too! Even so, I challenge both you and I to take a few days here and there to simply have some good November fun with our family and friends. To help you out with that, here is a short list of homestead holidays in November!
More Holiday Resources for Fall:
How to Make a Grapevine Wreath
Make Natural Beeswax Fire Starters
Homestead Holidays in November
One thing that makes this list of holidays in November unique is that I’m focusing only on those holidays that can work themselves easily into a homesteading lifestyle. Things like:
- Natural crafts
- Healthy foods
- Frugal decorating
If you have favorites of any of these, be sure to let us know about the in the comments section!
National Holidays in November
National holidays are celebratory days for the U.S. alone, although many countries have their own versions. If you’re not a U.S. reader, skip to the next section or have some fun trying one of our special days.
The more, the merrier!
To help you get organized, decide which holidays you’d like to celebrate, and fill your planner with easy-to-fill worksheets, join our newsletter family and receive our Holiday Help Worksheets for free. When you join the newsletter list, you’ll get access to a huge library of free resources, including several other holiday workbooks.
National Homemade Bread Day
November 17th brings us national homemade bread day, and what a day it is! Learning to make our own bread is a valuable homestead skill.
- Bread is a univeral symbol of homemade comfort food that nourishes the soul and body. In many cultures, bread is used to welcome guests, celebrate a wedding, and certainly to note a holiday!
Homemade bread is invariably more nutritious than it’s store bought counterpart, especially if you can learn to use sourdough culture.
I only bake with sourdough, which means I never use commercial yeast. I do this for both nutritional value and to save money while being less dependant on the grocery stores.
I also only long-ferment my baked goods. This means that I culture, or ferment, my sourdough recipes for a minimum of six hours.
This minimum time allows the sourdough culture to make good progress digesting the starches in the flours to create the rise necessary for a good bread loaf. This process also make the bread easier for my body to process because the sourdough essentially pre-digests the bread for me.
- Learning and Yearning can take you through six benefits of baking with sourdough.
- Butter for All will help you demystify sourdough – why it’s better for you, etc.
Homemade Sourdough Bread Recipes to Begin
To learn even more about sourdough, read our article Healthy Bread & Naturally Leavened Sourdough.
Also helpful would be: Yeast Free Bread: Sourdough with Spelt.
After that, try any of these homemade bread recipes:
- Sourdough Bread Beginner Recipe
- Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread
- Easy Sourdough Bread (with Active or Unfed Starter)
- Sourdough Banana Bread (with discard)
If you’re just not ready for sourdough, but like the idea of avoiding commercial yeast, try our Kefir Fermented Bread.
Family Stories Month
November is the home of family stories, or in other words, family history! Gathering stories from our family tree is so meaningful, esepcially from family members that are getting on in years.
My grandfather kept a family journal from the time he was a young father to two little girls, one of whom was my mom. All through his long life, he would record the ins and outs of their family’s life.
He’s miss whole years here and there, of course, like we all do when we get busy. However, towards the end of his life, he felt a strong push to pick up the journals again and finish his personal history.
He wrote a little every day for the last few years we had him. He even wrote when his handwriting was difficult to discern as his hands shook with age.
Now that he’s gone, those precious journals are sitting on the bookshelves of our home library. Some are fancy journals, while others are simple lined notebooks. All are a treasure.
The Family Story Project – Make it a Tradition!
Since many Americans gather together for Thanksgiving at the end of the month, the beginning of November is a good time to send out invitations to participiate in The Family Story Project.
- Send an email to everyone around November first, requesting that they send back anything from the list of suggestions below. (We’re helping you out with a list of writing prompts lower down in the article.)
The longer the better, of course, but really anything they can write down and send back will be helpful to you.
- Before Thanksgiving, compile all these stories in chronological order. It doesn’t matter if they’re random and it doesn’t matter is two people have remembered the same event different. In fact, that’s kind of the fun part!
- Keep this record digital so that you can add to it every year, but print a hard copy for those who like to have one as a Thanksgiving gift.
- Do it again the next year – make this a new tradition! Who knows but what you’ll end up with folders worth of stories sitting on your home library shelves that can be shared around every holiday and special day.
Story, our family’s story, give us a powerful feeling of connection and foundation. Knowing who we are and to whom we belong can help us stay grounded in a scary world.
- If your family isn’t the story type or if those relationships are rocky right now, try tracing your family tree instead. For fantastic and totally free help with that, visit Family Search.
- For more ideas, especially for the kids, try our article, Kids Activities in Genealogy.
- 5 Ways to Improve the Family Dinner Hour & Building Family Traditions on the Homestead might also be helpful.
Family History Writing Prompts
Pick any or all of these family history writing prompts to share with your family email list as part of your Family Tree Project for November.
Instructions
Remind participants to simply ignore any prompt that doesn't relate to their situation. Reassure them that what they write doesn't have to be super fancy; only honest and from the heart.
Remind them to write with love, even if they're sharing something difficult from your family history.
- Tell the story of the day you were born. Or your first day. Or your first job.
- What's your favorite food and why? Is it a family recipe? If so, send along the recipe.
- What's your favorite crazy story from the family history? Do you have a zany relative up your family tree? Write about them!
- Write five life lessons you've learned from your family history or people now living.
- How did Grandma and Grandpa meet? How did they fall in love? How did Grandpa propose? (Or maybe Grandma proposed?!)
- What's your favorite sibling or cousin story?
- Do you have a favorite family heirloom? Why is it special? To whom did it originally belong?
- Write a brief biography for yourself. Help the youngest children in your family do this, too.
- Write about a major event that's happened in your lifetime. Something historic or socially significant.
- Describe your wedding day as if none of the family members were there. What happened? What did you eat? What kind of flowers were there?
- Share a favorite photo that tells a story. Share that story.
- Tell us about your best friend, or your favorite pet or teacher.
- Interview someone in the family about their life and record what you learn. Use a recording app to help you remember everything as you write it down to share.
- What's your favorite family tradition? Write about it.
- Do some research on the surnames (last names) of the family. What do they mean? From which countries do they originate?
- Do you have a coat of arms somewhere back in your family tree? Draw or print it out and label each element with its meaning. From which country does it come?
- Pick a favorite pioneering ancestor who bravely overcame great odds to build a wonderful life for their family. Who are they and why did you choose them? Try to include a picture.
- Find a newspaper article from the time when your favorite ancestor lived. Maybe there's an article about them, or the place they lived. What was happening in their town? What kind of are did they live in and what kind of people were their neighbors?
- Which is your favorite family story, even if you're not sure it's 100% true. Write it down and read it aloud at the next family gathering. Ask everyone to share any details you forgot that thye remember.
- Did anyone in the family tree speak a language other than English? If so, which one and where did they come from? Try to learn a few basic words in that language to share at the next family gathering.
- Make a list of things you're grateful for this year. Include some that are relevant to family members. Consider writing these onto index cards and putting them on each person's plate before the next family dinner as a little thank you for their positive influence in your life.
Other Random National Holidays in November – a List
Here are a few more random days worth noting to brush up on skills or to make more memories with your family.
- Veteran’s Day is on November 11th and there are so many family friendly ways to celebrate. Visit our guest post at Hobby Farms to learn about several Memorial Day Traditions you can try.
- On America Recycles Day on November 15th, how about you learn how to stop recycling?! Wha…?
- National Child’s Day is November 2oth; have you ever thought about homeschooling your kids on the homestead so you can spend more time with them?
National Days & Food
Here are a few more national celebrations that involve food. Mmmmm, food.
- Celebrate national Vinegar Day on November 1st by learning to make your own herbal infused vinegars.
- November 17th marks national Butter Day. What better way to celebrate than to learn to make your own butter?
- Try making our sweet curry pickles for national Pickle Day on November 14th.
Cranberry Relish Day is November 22nd – what a great day to celebrate! Try these recipes:
5 Leftover Cranberry Sauce Recipes + Sourdough Cranberry Sauce Loaf
Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce Recipe
Spiced Cranberry Punch or Kefir Soda
Fresh Cranberry & Persimmon Sauce
Heart Healthy Cranberry Recipes
Maize Day is the always the day after Thanksgiving and is a wonderful way to remember how important corn is to many cultures and countries. In America’s early days, it was corn and the generous native populations who kept the settlers alive.
Here are some fun corn related articles:
Make Homemade Popcorn from a Dried Ear of Popcorn
Grab your copy of 5 Kernels of Corn to truly celebrate the Thanksgiving holidays. This book includes our family tradition of placing five kernels of corn on our plates and expressing gratitude for five blessings. This comes from an old, Colonial tradition that has stood the test of time. There’s so much more in this book for your family!
Religous Holidays in November
After Halloween, come both All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day on November 1st and 2nd, respectively. In various places around the world like South America and Mexico, the celebration of these days (especially November 2nd) is called Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).
Far from being somber or macabre, this is a joyous celebration of life and family as the living gater around the gravesites of those who have passed on to share stories and bake the deceased’s favorite foods.
To learn more about this holiday, visit our post featuring our recipe for Day of the Dead Low Carb Sugar Skulls. After the recipe, there’s lots of information on the holiday itself.
You can also grab your own copy of Homestead Holidays wherein Dia de los Muertos is given a whole section of its own.
Thanksgiving (U.S)
In the US, Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday that occurs annually on the third Thursday in November.
Though days of thanks are common to every culture throughout time, the modern version of Thanksgiving celebrated in the US commemorates the “first” Thanksgiving celebrated in 1621 by the European settlers (called Pilgrims) and their native neighbors, the Wampanoag, on the eastern shores of the United States.
There are myriad ways to celebrate this day from eating too much turkey, to playing football, to hanging out with your family (all based on Native American traditions, by the way). I’m going to highlight just one.
The Surprise Service Challenge
Thanksgiving is a great time of year for service projects for you and your family. One of our favorites is one we don’t even have to leave the house to accomplish!
Because it often happens that the community we need to serve the most is the one that lives in our house. So, for one week have a Surprise Service challenge.
Pick an easy-to-carry object for this activity. For example, I laminated a large, paper star.
Explain to the children that this is the Surprise Star of Service (or whatever item you chose), and you’re going to be the first to use it.
Tell them that you’ll be doing a surprise act of service for someone in the house and will leave the star behind for them to find. If they find the star, then it’s their turn to do a surprise, anonymous service.
Some ground rules can be helpful:
- No one gets to steal the Surprise Star of Service and go rogue with a kind act. You can do as many kind services as you want, but don’t take the star from someone else—that’s just not cool.
- You may not hide the star, either—also not cool.
- You can’t keep the star for more than eight hours unless you have consulted with a parent.
- Try to think of something your person really needs that day. Remind them that verbal praise is one of the best services we can render each other in our family. Sometimes we’re so harsh with each other; kind words are like a healing balm.
Surprise Service Challenge Notes
It ends up being difficult to keep each service anonymous and you get a lot of repeat services like making beds and hand-drawn pictures. It’s all good!
FYI, we used to call this the Secret Star of Service activity, but we’ve become cautious with how we use the word secret in our house.
Secret is a word that child predators so often use when manipulating children. We’ve discussed what most people mean when they use the word secret and to be aware of the difference.
- In the case of this activity, what we really mean is fun surprise.
What about you? What’s your favorite way to celebrate your country’s version of Thanksgiving? (They may not take place in the fall, but soooooo many cultures have a Thanksgiving Day equivalent!)
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