Advent of Thankfulness

One thing about me is I absolutely LOVE advents/coutdowns. For me as a mom it becomes a super easy and achievable way to focus my children and home on the Lord. Whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines Day, or Easter we countdown in some way.
Here are a few ways to focus your family’s hearts on gratitude as we prepare for Thanksgiving.
Many years ago we started making Thankful Leaves. My daughter and I cut out leaf shapes on construction paper. Then we hung up a piece of string on the wall. Every night we would grab a leaf and each write what we were thankful for that day. It is such a sweet time to end your day. Focusing on all the GOOD the Lord has done in our lives. No matter how rough the day is there is ALWAYS something to praise the Lord. After we finished our leaf we would tape or clothespin it to our string. As the days went on a garland of gratitude was created. We save them and every year we would hang them around our living room. As my kids get older this has become such a precious time capsule for me. Remembering all the stages and phases of my babies.
One year we got a branch out of the yard and put it in a jar of rocks and hung the leaves on the branches. While beautiful it didn’t quite work for our chaotic small home.
Because of the busyness of this year we got this beautiful pumpkin and are writing, with a permanent marker, what we are thankful for each day. I’m excited to see all this pumpkin covered with the Goodness of God!

Ideas
-Thankful Leaves Garland
-Thankful Tree
-Pumpkin of Praise
-Jar of Gladness (place a jar on your dining room table and every night write down what you’re thankful for. Use scrap paper or cute leaves, pumpkins, even football paper cutouts and watch your jar fill with praise!)

Even if the month gets away from you this is always an activity you can do on Thanksgiving Day. Especially if you are hosting a crowd.

Here is a leaf printable to get you started.

Happy Thankful Season!