Traveling during Memorial Day can get chaotic. Sometimes the best and most Mindful approach to a long weekend is a Memorial Day staycation. So, consider planning a Memorial Day cookout for your friends and family. You’ll save yourself from awful headaches and high travel costs.

During the Memorial Day holiday (from Thursday to Monday), more than 38 million people will be traveling to celebrate and relax. There are definitely great things to see from festivals and state parks to museums and historic sites. But there’s definitely something to be said about the benefits of staying home. You can skip all the lines and the traffic and just spend time with the people that mean the most to you.

5 Memorial Day Cookout Ideas

Need some ideas for your Memorial Day cookout? Consider these five Mindful tips.

• Decorate. Attention to details adds so much to a party. Decorative plates, a bright tablecloth, and colorful candles are all you really need. You can let the kids go wild, blowing up balloons and creating paper streamers. Or go a step further with hanging paper lanterns, Tiki torches, and flags.

• Go green. Consider making green changes like using real silverware (not plastic) and cloth napkins (instead of paper napkins). Consider using an electric grill to cook the food. Or, if you’re committed to grilling outside, consider the FlameDisk, which uses ethanol (made from corn) and can be used in charcoal grills.

• Host a cooking competition. A little friendly competition can be great fun. Everyone has their own special recipe that they think is the best, having a cook-off is a great way of putting those recipes to a test. You can have a theme like a chili competition or a burger taste test. You get to try different foods, plus it’s also a great way to ensure that everyone brings an edible contribution.

• Games for the kids. Finding fun activities for the kids is easy. With a little chalk, your kids can draw and have fun on the sidewalk and the driveway. If you don’t mind them getting wet, consider a water balloon fight. Try classic games like a horseshoe-throwing contest or craft projects like creating the American flag with Popsicle sticks.

• End on a sweet note. Desserts make a great conclusion to any party or cookout. Consider ice cream with red, white and blue sprinkles or skip the sprinkles and add grilled peaches. You can buy bomb popsicles or make your lemonade popsicles. For a healthy option consider making red, white and blue parfaits with strawberries, yogurt, and blueberries.