With Thanksgiving being less then a month away, many of us are planning our delicious dinners, family get togethers and shopping for Christmas deals.  Often times the meaning of  this special holiday seems to get lost in the excitement of Santa’s December arrival.  When I came across Emily’s post on her Jones Design Company blog it warmed my heart.  Here’s what she had to say:

“This season leading up to Thanksgiving is one of my favorites.  If there is anything I’d like to be, it is thankful, and so I love the idea of expressing our gratitude both in spoken and written word.

I have created a set of cards to help encourage this attitude of thankfulness.

You could put one at each place setting at the the Thanksgiving table, have your family and friends fill them out and share with each other.  My sister does this each night leading up to Thanksgiving with her family and then saves the cards to read the following year.

Another great way to use the cards is to turn them into tags

and hang them on a thankful tree.

The boys and I tromped out into the woods, cut down a few branches, put them into a heavy urn and filled the bottom with stones to hold the branches in place.

Every day, we each write one thing we are thankful for. And the rule is that nothing can be duplicated.  This is our first year doing a thankful tree and I’m looking forward to seeing what the boy’s come up with. I hope it is a great way to instill in them the importance of having a thankful heart.  I know it will be good practice for me and Ryan, too.

{at least we’ve instilled some self-esteem in this silly child}.”

What a wonderful tradition to start with your loved ones.   We live in such a busy world we sometimes forget to slow down and appreciate all that we have.  Maybe this will be something you will want to do with your family too!