Preparing for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  By far.  Christmas is fun, but all of the commercialism and wasted money gives me a stomach ache.  But for the most part Thanksgiving has not been turned into another reason to buy more stuff.

But sometimes I wonder if we spend more time preparing our food and our houses for Thanksgiving than we do our hearts.

In an effort to change that in our household, we are making a Thanksgiving tree.

We went for a walk a few days ago and found some twigs and branches.  Then we put them in a vase on the dining room table.  Now, every night at dinner, we cut a few circles out and spend a couple of minutes sharing something we are thankful for.  (My favorite so far:  Elise is thankful for her blankie!) Then we punch a hole in the circles and hang them on the tree.  If we keep doing this, the branches will be overloaded with our "leaves" of gratitude that we can share on Thanksgiving.

Today marks one months until Thanksgiving.  I hope each person who reads this finds something to do to be thankful for the month (and all of the other months, too!)  If you have any other ideas of ways to do this, please share!