Friday, November 13, 2009

Traditions

After reading this book, I have really tried to change the way I think about the holidays. For the past year or so, I have tried to create traditions that do nothing but honor Jesus and give my family time to talk about Him, acknowledge Him and praise Him together. You can read my big post on this issue here.

Anyways, for Thanksgiving, I like to spend the each day of November telling God what we are thankful for. Last year we did this. This year, I'm a few days late, BUT...we pulled it together this afternoon and made a Thanksgiving Tree.
The best part of this project was that it didn't cost me a dime!
My supplies:
- a vase
- dried beans
- sticks and small branches from outside
- decorative paper (I had a pad of card stock cards with coordinating patterns, thankfully in fall colors)
- raffia

I just arranged the sticks in the vase, and filled it with beans to keep them in place. Then cut out leaf shapes out of the card stock and hung them on the branches with the raffia. Each day, (we did several today because we're so far behind) we will write something we are thankful for on a leaf. Also, on the front of our vase, I tied on our memory verse for the month. 1 Chronicles 16:34 "Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His steadfast love endures forever!"

I am really happy with the result. I think I will even adapt the idea for Christmas. I was thinking of hanging paper stars or Christmas ball shapes and writing the Advent Scriptures on them or perhaps writing some of the attributes of Jesus on them. Don't know yet. Still thinking. I'm working on some other Advent ideas and will post those as soon as I'm done. Hopefully, before it's actually here! ;)

5 comments:

Mommy, M.D. said...

Very cute! I like it. I'm thinking of doing an advent calendar; let me know if you come across a cute one.

Erica Dirba said...

I love this! You're going to have to make me a survival guide when I become a wife/mother lol :]

Steph said...

Brandi,
I ordered my advent calendar last year from Christianbook.com. I can't say that it is the cutest thing ever, but...it serves it's purpose. I found a lot of super cute advent calendars at like target and pottery barn kids, but nothing actually having to do with Jesus. If you want Jesus then your options get a little cheesier. :)One of these days I'd like to make one. One of these days.
Hope that helps.

Catherine Haskew said...

What a cute idea Steph! I definitely want to do this when our little one arrives!

mandi said...

love it!
we did one of these last year as well and i 've been on the lookout for a good tree branch. it didn't occur to me that i could use SEVERAL sticks instead of the elusive perfect branch!

about the advent tree- last year we wrote out the attribute for that week and hung them on our tree...along with something else. i can't remember. but it was really cute! you can search for it on my blog under 'advent' if you'd like to see what we did.