The long Memorial Day Weekend is the perfect way to kick off summer after the long, grey days of winter and spring.
It’s also a perfect way to spend time with family and friends of all ages. Here are 4 great memorial day ideas to help you and yours enjoy the festivities.
1. Have a Picnic
One of the best parts of Memorial Day is knowing that summertime is finally here, so why not celebrate it with a picnic?
If the pesky rain stays away, Memorial Day is absolutely perfect to go out to a park, forest preserve, or just your own backyard to enjoy some snacks and enjoy the weather with family and close friends.
Bring a colorful blanket or chairs, and set the mood with some flowers or that flower print dress you’ve been waiting to wear out.
You can even incorporate seasonal favorites into your snacking with berries, greens, and refreshing drinks like tea and lemonade. Just don’t forget the sunscreen for you sensitive skin havers! Nobody wants to start the summer by turning into a lobster.
For extra entertainment, why not bring out some small, and portable activities like horseshoes, frisbees, a kite, or the ever popular cornhole?
2. Jam Out to the Annual Memorial Day Concert
PBS holds a Memorial Day concert every year on the weekend before Memorial Day, May 24 this year.
You can watch it on your local PBS station if you’re celebrating indoors, or stream it on the PBS website if you wanna still enjoy the outdoors while listening to fantastic music from Trace Adkins, the National Symphony Orchestra, and many more artists beginning at 8 PM EST.
3. Watch a Seasonal Film, TV Series, or Documentary
Of course, the reason for Memorial Day is the various armed forces members who have served over the decades, so it’s only right to consider basing some of your festivities on the long weekend around remembering this.
An easy way to do this is to watch any of the many military films, tv shows, and documentaries that are available. Some fantastic examples are HBO’s Band of Brothers and Generation Kill, Dunkirk, The World Wars in Color Series, and Casablanca if you’re feeling vintage.
Of course, if you’re being more child friendly or want something on theme that will also be fun for a younger crowd, there’s always Captain America.
4. Do Something for the Armed Services
Not everyone can celebrate Memorial Day with all of their family and friends. Many Americans are still deployed in various locations abroad and many veterans may be the last of their friends and/or family. This doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it.
If you have younger kids, why not have them send letters to the troops? Some schools have this as an educational activity on its own, but if your local school doesn’t, it can be a kind gift for someone far from home. I remember asking what a Marine’s favorite dinosaur was as a child. It was a T-rex.
Another way you can do something kind for Memorial Day is to make care packages for service people or veterans. Operation Gratitude provides numerous resources for the kind of things to send, where to send them, and how to donate if you can’t manage a package, especially this year during COVID.
Have a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend, and keep our troops in your thoughts and actions when you can.
