I love Thanksgiving--the food, the family, the relatively stress-free day of sitting around eating and talking, and most of all, taking time to think about all that I have to be thankful for.
What I hate about Thanksgiving is that the rest of the world seems to have forgotten it. Halloween and Christmas have completely eclipsed my favorite holiday! (Gasp, did she just say that she had a favorite holiday other than Christmas?! Isn't that against the law or something?!)
I challenge all you readers to take a stand and actually CELEBRATE Thanksgiving this year. I'm not talking about gorging yourselves in a few weeks (that's fine to do, btw); I mean really celebrate being grateful for everything that you and I have.
In our family, every day in November at dinner, we each say something that we're thankful for (no repeats allowed) and we write it on a construction-paper leaf. The leaves are then taped onto our "Thankfulness Tree" (a piece of posterboard with a bare tree drawn on it). On Thanksgiving Day, we read all the leaves. I think it's a great way to really think of all our blessings--having the rule of no repeats makes for creative answers, and I think it helps the kids be happier with what they have, instead of focused on the interminable lists that so many write out for Santa. They also seem to say 'thank you' more often during this time of year and spend time thinking about how to help those in need.
If anyone else has any ideas on great Thanksgiving traditions, or how to help our families be more thankful, please share!
