Thanksgiving, a day that celebrates being thankful for family, friends, food, health and other positive influences, has become significantly less stressful due to new technological developments.

A survey by NielsenIQ has shown that 91% of Americans plan to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, with the majority (83%) either staying at home (59%) or within 50 miles of their house. More interestingly, figures from SellCell show that the central feast won’t be tech-free, with 27 per cent of Americans admitting to using phones or tablets during previous Thanksgiving dinners.

Whilst playing with your smartphone over the dining table isn’t to be encouraged, a wide range of apps available can make the run-up to, and the aftermath, fairly seamless.

As Americans everywhere brace themselves for their annual day of celebration on the 24th of November, we take a closer look at a number of apps that are guaranteed to have you talking turkey!

Gratitude

As Thanksgiving is all about being thankful for what we have, what better way to keep track of the positive aspects in your life than through the Gratitude app. With both a paid and free version, users are encouraged to type in things they are grateful for each day, from people in your life to goals you have achieved.

Gratitude has grown in popularity over the past few months, and it estimates it has over 1.5 million users – that’s a lot of zen. Available for iOS and Android, it’s designed to help you with your overall well-being and mental health. What’s more, it features a savvy digital vision board, daily zen and affirmations. You can add photos to make it even more accessible; you aren’t even required to log in to use it!

Thanksgiving Greetings

Designed specifically for people who wish to spread cheer this Thanksgiving, this easy-to-use app allows you to design greeting cards, email and share them via WhatsApp.

Choose the font, and colour, select your borders and align your images to create colourful e-cards. You can also insert photos, crop images, add stickers, rotate and flip clipart, and the list goes on…

With over 10 thousand users, Thanksgiving Greetings continues to grow in popularity and is free to download on iOS and Android.

Thanksgiving Ringtones Sounds

It’s official, themed ringtones are back in fashion, and what better way to keep up with the holiday spirit than by downloading the Thanksgiving ringtones and sounds app. Free to use but only available on Android, it offers a wide range of tunes and sound effects that you can set as ringtones, message notifications and even alarms. From turkey noises to whistles to crowds and more, it’s super easy to use – swipe on any sound title and tap on whichever noises or music tracks tickle your fancy. Its share feature makes it even more enjoyable to play with, which enables you to send sounds to your friends and family and share them on social media.

KitchenPad Timer

This nifty little app is great for those who tend to burn food on a regular basis. Although it is a paid-for app and only works with iOS, it is available in over seven languages and features a virtual kitchen, meaning you can map and time what’s cooking on each stove. With five different hobs, you can assign a different food to each and run multiple timers in minutes. To make cooking easier, you can label each one, give it a unique alarm sound and designate different temperature settings. It also has a barbeque interface for those who enjoy chargrilled turkey and beef brisket!

Hello Vino: Wine Assistant

As a wine lover, this is one of my favourite apps for Thanksgiving. Hello, Vino offers one way to impress your guests by providing wine suggestions and food pairings. A tinder for grape lovers, you can match your stuffing, turkey, bean casseroles, sweet potatoes and more to different varieties. The app, designed for year-long use, features a specific section for Thanksgiving dinner. Inputting your wine taste preferences makes buying and trying different varieties an enjoyable process. Another unique feature is its wine label scanner, which enables you to save images of bottles you see in the supermarket, provides you with information on them, and saves ratings and prices for future purchases. Although subscription-based, it will enable you with expert pairings, and, I can confirm, it works well on Android and iOS.

Chow’s Thanksgiving Dinner Coach

Recommended for kitchen novices, this free-to-use app aims to help remove the stress from the entire meal preparation process. Although currently only available on iOS, it’s designed for beginners and helps you plan, shop, and cook those all-important Thanksgiving dishes. Not only does it help you put together a shopping list, it also features nine traditional easy-to-cook dish recipes and even provides you with a timeline, so you know what to make and how long it should take. Renowned for helping those most alien to the kitchen. Chow will help you put together Thanksgiving Dinner in no time.

Thanksgiving e-cards

Similar to Thanksgiving cards, this app provides you with a more extensive colourful range of online greetings to help you celebrate the spirit of Thanksgiving. Also free to use, it features a host of cards for friends and family, including thanksgiving love, dinner, prayers, thank you and miss you messages. It provides templates whereby you can also upload videos, GIFs and postcards, each of which can be charred on social channels. You can also schedule and send your e-cards to multiple contacts, giving you more time to prepare for and celebrate the big day.

At the moment, this app is only available on iOS, but it looks set to become available on Android at some stage in the future!

Heads Up!

Look no further than the Heads Up for a fun after-dinner game that doesn’t involve too much effort; look no further than the Heads Up! An app which was created alongside celebrity superstar Ellen DeGeneres.

Although this reverse-style charades game is paid for, it is low-cost and works on both Android and iOS. One person holds a phone up to their forehead and has to try to guess what’s on their phone screen. It can be a person, character, phrase or more. It features a number of game decks from Harry Potter to Friends and Marvel, and what’s even better, you can now play it with friends and family all over the world through its facetime capability. This is one app that’s definitely worth a download.