The "Thank-you Tree"

Once again, in my plight to give Thanksgiving adequate attention (against Christmas's dominance), we started up a "thank-you tree." Each day of the month leading up to Thanksgiving, each member in our family will write up something they are thankful for on a paper leaf and tape it up onto our thank-you tree. We already had a tree painting in our playroom so it was pretty easy to just cut out leaves from a paper grocery bag and tape up the leaves onto our tree. But since most people don't have a giant tree painting somewhere in their house, you can easily make a cutout from paper and tape it up. Or you can also simply tape up colorful paper leaves around the house for decoration. Either way, it is great practice to take some time and think about what we are thankful for, and it's great to have the visual of the tree/leaves growing bigger each day.

The simple act of starting a thank-you tree can really help direct the focus on gratefulness, joy, and love that can be found all around us. I invite all of you to start up this wonderful tradition. Every morning now my three year old son bounces around, declaring that "it's time to do the thank-you tree!" With all the holiday madness already starting, it's nice to take the lessons of Thanksgiving and spread the joy of saying thanks all throughout the month.