A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving-Inspired Snack Board Is Exactly What 2020 Calls for

Our family kicks off most holidays by watching one (or more) of the Charlie Brown seasonal specials. There’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown for Halloween and The Charlie Brown Christmas Special at Christmas, so, of course, every Thanksgiving we watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving before our holiday meal. A few years ago, we started serving Charlie’s last-minute Thanksgiving meal as a pre-dinner snack (or even midday meal), and it has easily become one of my favorite traditions.

For those who don’t remember, Charlie Brown is pressured to host a Thanksgiving dinner despite not knowing how to cook, and he and Snoopy put together a feast of buttered toast, popcorn, pretzels, and jelly beans. Peppermint Patty is absolutely appalled at the lack of mashed potatoes and gravy, but I think toast, pretzels, and jelly beans might just be the perfect feast for Thanksgiving this year. Here’s how to make your own Charlie Brown-inspired Thanksgiving “feast” that can hold off hungry kids until dinner (or maybe be dinner itself).

I’m including three years’ worth of Charlie Brown snack board photos here to show you just how different they can be, even with the same anchor snacks. The required jelly beans always go first — the ones pictured above were descended upon by a gaggle of school kids before we even cut into the Brie — and we almost always include some cheeses and fruit to round out the board. You can choose mini pretzel twists, sticks, or even soft pretzels for the pretzel component of the board. I’ve tried many variations of toast over the years, but heavily buttered Texas toast is my favorite. Here’s my favorite formula for making your own Charlie Brown Snack Board.

• Easy homemade snacks: Texas Toast , Movie Theater-Style Popcorn
• Store-bought shortcuts: Pretzel twists, 1 to 2 cheeses, apples, grapes, nuts, or crackers
• Special treats: Jelly beans or your favorite fancy cheese

Family Snack Boards are an easy way to minimize cooking and dishwashing and make family meals fun! This monthly series will give you snack board meal ideas that rely on just one or two simple recipes and utilize store-bought favorites to fill out the board.