How To Make A Thankful Tree

On November 1st, the Halloween decorations come down and in their place pop up fall and Thanksgiving decor.  One of my family's favorite decorations is a thankful tree that takes up a good portion of the wall in our family room.  It's giant.  I have to use a stool to reach the highest branches.  It takes a little bit of time to put together.  But we are going on our third year doing it and every year I love it even more.  My kids get excited when I tell them the thankful tree is going up and it warms my heart to see them so happy to share the things they are thankful for each day.  It's become one of our favorite Thanksgiving traditions and today I want to share with you how to make your own.

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Deeds of Gratitude: A New Thanksgiving Tradition

When I was growing up, the dictionary was one of my best friends.  It wasn't because I loved looking up words and their meanings.  No, it was because whenever my mom used a word I didn't know and I said, "What does that mean?" that she would say, "Go look it up."  I had kind of a ridiculous vocabulary for an elementary student as a result and even got questioned by my teachers a few times because they thought my mom had written a paper or done my homework for me.  A desire to understand the meaning of different words has stuck with me throughout the years and as we approach Thanksgiving, I've been considering the difference between two words: thankful and grateful.

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What I'm Thankful For

In the last few weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, one of my most popular posts has been What I'm Thankful For which I posted last year just before Thanksgiving.  I've been surprised to see it move up my charts and is currently the 5th most popular post on my blog!  People must really want to know what I'm thankful for! *wink*

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Simplifying the Season

At the beginning of this month, we had a lesson at church about the trio of holidays--Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years--and talked at length about how they are each related to each other and why celebrating them together can actually enhance our enjoyment of the holiday season.  I hadn't really thought about it in this way before but haven't been able to get it out of my head.

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Pumpkin Cake

I am not even kidding when I say I have been waiting all year to share this recipe with you!  Pumpkin cake has been a family favorite of ours for years.  We actually stopped making pumpkin pie and make this instead every year for Thanksgiving!  Yes, it is that good.

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Top 10 Posts of 2015

Sunshine and Munchkins has been up and running for almost three months now and it's been so much fun for me!  Lots of hard work and time, but I've loved being able to share my posts with you and hear from you as well.  As we begin a new year, I thought it would be fun to show you what my top 10 posts were for 2015!

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Splitting Time Between Family During the Holidays

The first Christmas my husband and I celebrated after getting married was probably my least favorite.  And it had nothing to do with him!  It had to do with the fact that we tried to split our day between five different places.  By the time we made it to our last stop of the day, we were tired and cranky.  We did our best to muster up the last bit of energy we had, but I'm sure everyone (including us) could tell that our hearts just weren't in it.  On our way home that night, we vowed that we were never going to allow ourselves to do another Christmas like the one we'd just had.

My husband and I are in a somewhat unique situation in that our families and most of our siblings are all in the same state.  In addition to this, my parents are divorced which means we have three sets of parents.  While we love having so much family nearby, we don't like it as much during the holidays because it always seems like someone doesn't get visited or an event can't be attended.  We've experienced a lot of frustration and guilt over the years as we have tried to make everyone happy, to the exclusion of ourselves.

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Happy {Day After} Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday!  I know we sure did.  I loved starting new traditions this year and we will definitely be continuing them for years to come.  One thing I especially love about these new traditions is that they can be used in any situation or circumstance and they can be adapted to your own family and resources.  You don't need money or time to share what you're thankful for.

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What I'm Thankful For

Today, I am thankful.

I am so incredibly grateful for all that I have and I have been given so much that I want to share with you the things that I am most thankful for...

--I am thankful for my Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ.

--I am thankful for my family, both immediate and extended.  They are a great support system in good and bad times. Due to my parent's divorce, I don't have just two sides, but three, which gives me more people to love and who love me.

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23 Free Thanksgiving Coloring Pages and Activities Round-Up

One of the hardest things about Thanksgiving is the waiting.  Waiting for everyone to arrive.  Waiting for the food to cook.  Waiting for everyone to gather and get settled at the table.  And as hard as it is to wait as an adult, it's even harder for kids!  So to help keep everyone happy, I've done a round-up of free Thanksgiving coloring and activity pages for all ages so you don't have to do anything except print them out.  Just remember to bring the crayons.

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Book of Thanks Tutorial

Last week I posted about new traditions I'm going to be starting this Thanksgiving.  One of the traditions is a Book of Thanks, which is basically a journal or binder that you can bring with you each Thanksgiving, wherever you are, and have everyone write what they are thankful for (or draw a picture) in it.  (You can read more about it here in the original post.)  Today I am sharing a tutorial on how I created my Book of Thanks.  Hopefully it will give you some ideas about creating your own.

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Traditions I'm Starting This Thanksgiving

Family.  Food.  Football.  The three F's of Thanksgiving.  In three weeks, families all over the U.S. will be indulging in these activities in abundance.  Homes will become full of the smells of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, warm rolls and three different kinds of jello salad.  Growing up, I attended Thanksgiving dinners with family and friends in their homes, apartments and camping trailers, with no two years being the same.  Each year holds special memories of talking and laughing over food, napping in the afternoon and, of course, football, both on the TV and out in the yard.  And with Halloween past and Christmas coming up, there's Thanksgiving--tucked right in between the two.  I wouldn't go so far as to call it a forgotten holiday.  I think that pretty much everyone celebrates it in some form or another.  But I do think that it gets overshadowed by Christmas and that has always bothered me.

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