A Custom Thanksgiving Song for Your Family's Table

What is a custom Thanksgiving song?

A custom Thanksgiving song is a brand new song we write and record about one specific family, built from the names, dishes, and habits you give us, then emailed to you as an MP3 you can play at the table.

Thanksgiving is not really a gift holiday. Nobody is standing by the door waiting on a box. What the day actually has is a room: the same people, the same folding table in the hallway, the same argument about when to start eating. A song is one of the few things you can hand to a whole room instead of to one person.

So we write about the room. The aunt whose mac and cheese is not up for discussion. The cousin who arrives at halftime with a store bought pie and no shame about it. The grandmother whose kitchen this used to be. Real names, sung out loud, in the lyrics.

You get an original recording in the genre you pick, around three minutes long. Not a playlist of songs that already exist. Not a karaoke track with a name pasted on. A song that did not exist until you ordered it.

When do you play a Thanksgiving song at dinner?

A Thanksgiving song works best right after everyone sits down, in the spot where the grace or the go around the table toast would go, before the food starts moving.

Other spots that work: in the kitchen at ten in the morning, when the bird is in and there is nothing to do but wait. Over a speaker while people are still arriving and piling coats on a bed. In the car on the drive over, so it is playing before you walk in.

Play it off a phone and a small speaker, and load it up before people sit, so you are not scrolling through your email while the gravy goes cold.

Can you send a Thanksgiving song to someone who cannot make it this year?

You can send a Thanksgiving song to someone who cannot make it this year, because it is an MP3 that plays on a phone at a base, in a hospital, on a night shift, or in a time zone eight hours off.

Tell us where they normally sit and what they always bring. Tell us the thing your family says every single year, word for word, and we can put it in the first line. We write it from the table toward them, so it sounds like the room talking, not like a card.

Then send the file. It plays on a phone anywhere, with no app, no shipping, and nothing that can arrive after the plates are cleared. If they are dialing in on video at dinner, play it on your end and let them hear the room behind it.

The same song works for a first Thanksgiving without someone. Say so on the order form and tell us how you want the name handled, present tense or past. We follow what you write.

Is it too late to order a Thanksgiving song?

Every SoundCard song is emailed within 24 hours of the order, so a Thanksgiving song ordered Tuesday is in your inbox Wednesday, a full day before anyone sits down.

The fourth Thursday of November has a hard edge on it. Order Monday or Tuesday of that week and you have room to listen twice, once while you are peeling potatoes and once with headphones, so you know exactly what you are playing before the first guest knocks.

Ordering Wednesday morning still lands it before Thursday dinner. If you are traveling Wednesday, the time in a car seat or at a gate is a fine time to type out who is coming and what they bring. The song comes back to the inbox you are already refreshing.

What to tell us about your Thanksgiving table To write a Thanksgiving song about your table, send us six things: who is always there, what they bring, who does what, the line your family repeats every year, who is missing this year, and the genre you want.

• Who is always there First names and how they connect to you. Grandma Ruth, Uncle Dre, the neighbor who has come so many years running that nobody calls him a guest anymore.
• What they bring The dishes carry the names. Sweet potatoes with the marshmallows browned on top, cornbread dressing, collards, the pie somebody drives two hours with on the passenger seat, the cranberry sauce still shaped like the can.
• Who does what Who brines the turkey Tuesday night, who runs the kitchen and will not be helped, who shows up with ice and folding chairs, who is asleep by the third quarter, who gets stuck on dishes.
• The line everybody says If there is one at your table, send it. A warning about the oven, a toast repeated the same way every year, a phrase that only means something at that table. Give it to us word for word and it can carry the chorus.
• Who is missing Someone deployed, someone working the holiday, someone whose chair stays empty now. Tell us how you want them named and whether the song should say it plainly or leave the door open.
• How it should sound Country, soul, gospel, folk, hip hop, bluegrass, whatever plays in that kitchen while the pans are going. Pick the genre and the mood and we build the track around it.

Leaving it late? Songs are delivered by email within 24 hours of ordering, so a Thanksgiving song ordered the day before still arrives in time. You get an MP3 you can play from any phone, tablet, or speaker, and you keep it.

Thanksgiving song questions