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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The Easter Story: Easter Egg Activity

I feel like this year has been kind of a weird year when it comes to holidays.  First, we had two holidays in a row in February, with Valentine's Day and then President's Day the day after that.  This month, we have St. Patrick's Day and then 10 days later is Easter.  It doesn't leave much time to enjoy the holidays when they are all smooshed together like that.

BUT...I really like to at least try and enjoy each holiday for what it is before moving on to the next one.  That's why I was so excited to find an Easter activity that was given to me by a friend in college.  I've kept it for the last 10 years or so because I really wanted to do it with my kids, but the oldest is just getting old enough to understand that holidays generally have more meaning than just getting little gifts and candy.

Easter is easily one of my favorite holidays.  I love what and who it celebrates and I love that it comes in the springtime.  My hope is that through this activity, my daughter (and eventually my son) will be able to learn the reason we celebrate this holiday, especially since it is so central to our faith.

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Love Note Envelopes {plus a FREE printable}

I was browsing Hobby Lobby's Valentine items the other day when I saw the cutest oversized felt envelopes.  At $3.99 for 2, I couldn't pass them up and threw them in my cart, not totally sure what I was going to do with them.  I forgot about them for a few days when I had the idea to use them as love note envelopes for my family during the month of February.  These felt envelopes will be perfect for our family.  I know my kids (mostly my daughter) is going to love getting little notes throughout the month sharing reasons why they are loved. And this isn't just for kids.  I plan on sending some notes to my husband too. *wink*

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Simple Ways to Create Christmas Magic

Can you believe Christmas is in two days?  I distinctly remember one Christmas where I was about 8 years old.  I was sleeping soundly, but woke up for some reason.  I looked towards my window where I could see a faint red light and then I heard the sound of bells.  We didn't have red lights on our house and my mom didn't have any bells around that I remember.  I told my mom what I'd seen and heard the next morning and she looked surprised.  Whether it was my imagination or something else, I have always kept that memory as a little reminder of the magic of Christmas.

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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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Traditions I'm Starting This Christmas

When I think of Christmas as a small child, I think of all the different traditions we had growing up.  My mom loved (and still loves) traditions and Christmas is her favorite holiday so we had a lot of them.  Now that I have a family of my own, my husband and I have the opportunity to create new traditions as well as adopting some of the same ones we had in our family.

I remember loving Christmas as a child and wondering how it could get any better than unwrapping presents, playing with new toys and eating yummy food.  And then I became a parent and I was able to see the world from my parents' eyes as I watched my own kids experience the anticipation on Christmas Eve, their excitement on Christmas morning and just the overall feeling of happiness that seems to radiate from their being.  I loved Christmas as a kid, but I love it even more as a parent.

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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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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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