Our Thanksgiving Tree

Some traditions stem from a desire to create beautiful memories and instill values in your children. Some are crafted from generations worth of small habits and subtle changes. And some fall into your life as a result of hoarding other people's garbage.

Our Thanksgiving Tree is that kind of tradition.

A few years ago, for reasons I don't fully understand, people started giving us their old, fake Christmas trees. We ALWAYS get a real tree at Christmas, so one year when my grandma asked if we had a fake tree, I said no, and so she gave us hers. That same year two other family members gave us their old fake trees. 

It didn't seem right to throw away a perfectly good fake tree, so we stuffed them in the back of a closet. I was tempted to give them to the thrift store, but something in the back of my mind kept saying, "What if one day we need three extra fake trees?" So I kept them. My kids (who had never had a fake tree) were thrilled with the idea of a tree that we could set up as early as we wanted without risking a house fire, so when they asked if they could set it up early in the season, I said sure.

It was October.

We had the most beautiful Halloween Tree that year! Little pipe cleaner spiders and lolly-pop ghosts! It was quite special. When Halloween passed and we still had this giant tree standing in the living room, we had to find something to do with it. That's when we were inspired to make a Thanksgiving Tree.

We start by making simple ornaments out of paper and ribbon. Every day in November, each of us takes a paper ornament and writes down one thing we are grateful for, and we hang it on the tree. By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, our tree is filled with beautiful decorations. 

On Thanksgiving Day we take down all the ornaments and read them as a family.  It is a simple way to help us focus every day on what we are grateful for. And a great tradition of sharing those things over Thanksgiving dinner.

So maybe you don't have a Thanksgiving Tree (and maybe you really don't want one), but it wouldn't take too much creativity to come up with a similar tradition of your own. Perhaps a poster on the wall where you write every day. Maybe a gratitude box that you drop your ideas in every day of the month.  Whatever it is, make it fun, make it visible, and make it a habit.  Gratitude is one tradition you're never too old to enjoy.

Marcia