Thankful

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of year.  I love taking the time to sit back and think about how thankful I am for the many blessings that I have.  I love being together with family. I love the good food.  I love the cozy warmth of the house from the oven being on all day. 

The problem with Thanksgiving is that kids know that the day after starts the Christmas season so they are eager to get Thanksgiving over with. 

Teaching kids to take some time to think about their blessings is hard. 

Last year, we found something that helped.  One of the kids brought home a great big cut out turkey, so I used my Cricut and cut out leaves in red, orange, green and brown.  We covered the turkey with the leaves.  In order to put a leaf on the turkey, though, we had to write down something we were grateful for. 

Over the year, I forgot about the turkey.  As I pulled out the few Thanksgiving decorations we have, I found the turkey.  It was a lot of fun to look back at the things we were thankful for last year.  Some of them were: the temple, Darth Vader, family members, flowers, Taco Bell, etc. 

So this year, I cut out the letters to spell THANKFUL and taped them to the back of the front door.  In a jar next to the door, I put out some colored leaves, a pencil and a roll of tape.  On the first day, I let the everyone put up three things they are thankful for.  After that, they get to take a quiet minute and put up 1-2 leaves a day.  It’s been a lot of fun to watch the collection of blessings grow.  It’s a cute fall decoration too.

This year’s leaves have some of these words: cousins, friends, the treadmill, food, brothers, Daughter’s willingness to share, A-Z Mystery books, teachers, church, God, toys, etc. 

I like to think that this is a good way to help the kids realize what Thanksgiving is all about.