The Thankful Acorn

I shared this over at Blissful and Domestic last Friday, but in case you missed it I wanted to make sure to share it here.  It is a wonderful family project that we look forward to every year.

November brings on the holidays for most folks. And I am no different.  I am already thinking about the feast of course, spending time with family, preparing for Christmas(OH the crafts!!), but most of all being thankful. Although we should be thankful every single day, I like to take this month and really spend time on being aware of what we are thankful for. The most important thing I am thankful for is my faith and trust in God. Without His amazing Gift, His son Jesus Christ, I would be lost, but by grace I have been found(saved!). Thank God!

Today I am happy to share a fairly new family tradition.  It is called, The Thankful Acorn(that is just a name I came up with....you can pick your own). We started this just two years ago, thanks to my SIL, and absolutely love it.   

Many families like to take the time on Thanksgiving day to stop and be thankful.  And where I think that is a good practice to get into, I wanted it to be more than just one day.  Although we Praise God daily for the many blessings He gives us, I wanted a whole month for my boys to really think about all they have to be thankful for.
We started with just a few nights a week two years ago.  But now we do it almost every night of the week.  I prefer to spend the time right after supper while we are still at the table and write out our thankful notes.

Now here is where you can make it super simple(that's me!)or go all out on this.  I just do things simple so I used construction paper and stickers the first two years.  This year I bought cute scrapbook paper to write out our notes.  We'll be using a black pen or Sharpie so it will show up just fine.

The first couple of years I simply cut different colors of construction paper into small squares.  Then added some fall or Thanksgiving stickers and had them ready for each night.  Determine how many days you will do this in November and have them ready for each day. 
Next, find something you will put them in each day as you and your family write out the thankful note.  I had the cute little acorn basket for years.  I would always put it out for fall, but now it serves a true purpose. You could use a regular basket or a pretty fall tin.  The container really does not matter.  It is the actual sitting down and writing what you are thankful for.

If you have small children that can not write yet, do the work for them.  But encourage them to think of all the little things they are thankful for.  If they do know how to write let them do it......you may have to help with spelling, but allow them to do it on their own.  Sometimes that is hard for me.   And don't discourage what they are thankful for.  The boys the other night were both thankful for the TV.  I didn't really like that as something to be thankful for. After thinking about it we do not watch much TV so I can see why they might be thankful for it.

The fun part of this for us is going back each year and looking through our little notes.  We love seeing what each other was thankful for the year before. 

This last part is optional, but worth the little bit of extra work.  After Thanksgiving I take all the notes and put them in a "scrapbook".  The books from the past two years I found in the Target dollar section.  I wish I would have picked up more!  Not sure what I will use this year.  Again it does not matter what I put the notes in, just as long as I keep them as a memory to go back and look at later.  To save space you could simply put them in a baggie and pack away with all your fall decorations.  I have the two scrapbooks sitting out during the fall season and put them away with all my fall stuff at the end of November.

So that is The Thankful Acorn. 

I hope I have inspired you to make this part of your November/Thanksgiving tradition.  I am thankful for my sister-in-law that shared it with us a few years ago!  It is a fun part of November for our family. I am also thankful for the "friendships" through my blog.