Holidays in our Home: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one our favorite holidays, but the one that seems to vary the most from year to year, especially with regard to where we spend the holiday. Sophie's first Thanksgiving was spent at Whitestone Country Inn (where Matt and I married) with my parents, sisters, Matt and me. Since then, we've either been in Birmingham at my grandparents' home or in Franklin at my parents'. Of course, we celebrate with the typical Thanksgiving feast and family gathering, but we've tried to incorporate a few other special traditions over the years...

• Special books - I feel like Thanksgiving could easily get lost in between the Halloween candy and the Christmas presents, so we spend time each year trying to be sure we are communicating the story of Thanksgiving. The Story of the Pilgrims, Squanto, 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember are some of our favorites. This year, we've added a new favorite, Cranberry Thanksgiving, (from the Five in a Row curriculum) and we've spent a week completing a unit on this story, including making cranberry bread for the first time! We are hoping to add a little Thanksgiving play as we add more children to our celebrations! I also found that scholastic has a great engaging site ( http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/)all about Thanksgiving that Soph and I both enjoyed.
• Special songs - We know that the season of Christmas music is around the corner, but we try to listen to music centered around gratitude in the weeks prior to Thanksgiving, particularly as we travel to see family. This year, Sophie is loving We Gather Together, and we've always liked the Veggie Tale Thankfulness Song, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and Now Thank We All Our God. We also love singing Thanksgiving Day Is a Happy Day, A Turkey Is a Funny Bird, and Strut Mr. Turkey. (Though I accused my parents of making these few songs up because I can't find versions to download to our Thanksgiving cd...)
• Special projects - Unfortunately, I am the most un-crafty person on earth, (with a very crafty daughter no less...), but no year would be complete without the Thanksgiving turkey made from sweet little hands. This year, Will will have his own handprint turkey. We've made so many, Sophie can make them on her own, and does so year round... We also try to make place cards for family members, with Soph decorating and writing on the inside or back why she is thankful for each person. Matt wants to incorporate a service project into our Thanksgiving traditions, and this year, he took his students to work at a food pantry this year. As a family, we are trying to give Sophie concrete examples of gratitude such as taking a gift card to our neighbors who helped Matt when he had car trouble last week.
• Special devotions - Trying to communicate the meaning of gratitude to a preschooler can be a challenge, but we've attempted to focus on this during our family's devotion time. This year has been the easiest by far, using FamilyTime virtue packs, with this month's character trait being gratitude. Through family devotions, a CD and bedtime devotions (which we do as a part of school in the mornings), Sophie has learned that gratitude is "letting others know you see how they've helped you." A vast improvement from November 1 when we asked her if she knew what gratitude was and she quickly replied, "Yes, it is Spanish for eyes!" Thank goodness for virtue packs!

This will be our best Thanksgiving ever because this year Will is added to the list of blessings. He has brought so much joy to our family and expanded our capacity to love. Especially in the midst of turbulent economic times, I am hopeful that focusing on our most precious blessings will make this upcoming holiday season even more special. We have so much to be thankful for.