A Thankful Thanksgiving

Every year I get bugged that the world seems to take every chance they have to overlook Thanksgiving.  It has become increasingly forgotten other than a day to eat A LOT, watch/play football, and get ready to Black Friday shop.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE all those things. :)

However, I wish more emphasis was placed on the reason we celebrate this holiday...to give THANKSGIVING.

This year I stopped belly-aching about it...well sort of. :)  I decided to do something about it.  Trev and I decided this year we would focus on Gratitude leading up to Thanksgiving.  With the hope that the kids would be more grateful.  Boy did it work!

 Here is what we did.

Each night at dinner we would write down things we were grateful for on slips of paper.  Then we would link them to create a chain.  The chain was hung in the hallway.  I also wrote quotes about gratitude and how to show it on our white board in the kitchen.

We also did Family Nights on what gratitude means, how to show it, and why it is important.

If these kids didn't experience feelings of gratitude this month, it sure wasn't for lack of trying on our end. ;)

I must say however, I think it worked.  There were many times throughout the month I noticed a particular peace in our home.  It seemed like there was less arguing, more expressions of appreciation, and less stress - something unusual around the holidays.  

We have so many things to be thankful for.  The restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, our family, our healthy bodies, our friends, neighbors, homes...the list goes on and on.

At times it seems so easy to think of all the things you don't have.  So I am grateful we took the time to focus on this principle.  I hope those things we discussed and felt will sink deep into our kids souls.

Here is us with our thankful chain.

We even had my cute cousin Jordan with us!  She is up at BYU-I and man alive were we glad to have her around. :)

(Only downside was that she caught the stomach bug we all had...suffice it to say that my washing machine was running overtime this last week.)

Hope you all had a Thankful Thanksgiving.