Adopting a New Tradition

At the end of an after-storytime-lunch at Must Be Heaven, my friend Cheryl (who has since had a baby...congratulations to her!) was telling us about a fun Thanksgiving craft/activity for the kids. She cut out a big turkey and for each day until Thanksgiving, she and her two boys (well, now 3) will give him a feather with something that they're thankful for written on it. Super easy! And a great way to be daily reminding our kids (and ourselves!) that we have much to be grateful for.

Well, November already had a few days under its belt and I didn't really have any big paper from which to cut my turkey...so, I improvised. I had picked up a couple of small pumpkins before Halloween to do a little toddler-free pumpkin painting, but I never got around to it. Instead, I decided to translate Cheryl's turkey feathers into Give Thanks pumpkins.

I just wrote Give Thanks on them, (you could do this super cute with a great stencil or something), and then each day we've been writing on the pumpkins something we are thankful for. The concept is still a little fuzzy for Braelyn, but I think it's good to be having these conversations. Finally, for our dinnertime prayer, we give thanks to the Lord for that particular blessing.

There ya go. A kid-friendly, cheap, easy, and most importantly, a Christ-centered holiday tradition.

(Today we are thankful for my Grandma. Love you, Grandma! (Mom, tell Grandma we love her and we're thankful for her. ;)