Each night as we did our evening devotions focused on thankfulness and our many blessings the goal was to have each family member add another leaf to our tree. We just wrote something we wanted to thank Jesus for and signed our names then picked a branch and stapled it on. We had a great time with it and then when my sweet little nephew went to heaven our tree stopped growing for awhile. Thank you to all of you who have been praying for our family. Although I long to see my little nephew again right now I can say that I am so thankful for his life and all he did to further God's kingdom in his short 9 years on earth. What a blessing to be his Aunt. He wanted to live his life in ministry and he did and his life story will continue to minister to many for years. I hope to start growing our tree again tomorrow and am thankful for the big reminder in my home of all we are thankful for and most importantly WHO we are thankful to! It's pretty special that on our tree this year are the words heaven and so many things relating to what our family was in the midst of this year and the innocent child like approach our 5 and 3 year old had on it. I will for sure be keeping our leaves this year and starting next years with them.
More Ideas:
Thankful Turkey:
My sister's mother in law does something I hope to do in my home eventually. Last year I got the hand prints and this year I will as well in hopes next year I have enough to start my turkey. I think it is one of the best ways I have heard of to display previous years blessings in a fun, cute and special way. So what you do is have each family member trace their hand and write on it what they are most thankful for that year. The next year you will use these laminated hand prints to be a big turkey tail of a turkey body that you draw and put somewhere to display on your wall. This is super special because not only is it a cute handmade decor item but it shows the growth of the children's hand prints, the growth of the families hearts as they mature and go from being thankful for toys, to people, to grace and so on and you can even include the people you spend your Thanksgiving with and then it is a trip down memory lane as you see hand prints of people who you have been with in years past. My sister loves this turkey in her MIL's house and enjoys reading her hubby's words from his teenage years when he said things like "I'm thankful we only have to do this once" to his adult years and her name made it on a hand print! I will try and get her to take a picture this year and post it if I do.
Thankful Tree:
For those of you who move around a lot this is especially good for your families. It's the same idea as above but instead of hand prints each person picks a special leaf near your home to write what they are most thankful for on. The person who shared this idea with me said they use contact paper on them and then write with permanent markers. It;s special to them because they have leaves from several states and also all the fun things they were all thankful for hung on the wall for a beautiful fall decoration.
Don't forget if you have some great ideas for any of the holidays to share them with me (amy@honorhimalways.com). And check back often as December is sure to have lots of good stuff on here! I will be posting before the end of the week on Advent as the season is soon to begin and I hope to encourage you all to participate in the celebration that He has come and is coming again!
Blessings!
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