Gratitude

Somewhere along the line my daughter has picked up a pretty bad case of wanting everything she sees. I'm thinking it is a combination of age, inability to see through advertising and spending two months with family where she gets to have more things than she normally does. Either way I was laying awake in bed last night mulling this problem over. I hear several times a day about how she wants this or that. Today we were at the grocery store and she was whining for candy. She was wanting candy the day after Halloween! and just two days after we went trunk or treating. She's up to her eyeballs in candy at home but she wants more at the store.

So here's my new plan: I've decided that we need to celebrate Thanksgiving the whole month. People do things to celebrate Christmas for the whole month so we're going to do that for Thanksgiving. The only problem now is finding activities that cultivate gratitude and are fun for everyone.

We're kicking things off tonight at family night with Thanksgiving bingo. Charlotte loves bingo so I'm going to find or make bingo cards with pictures of things our family is grateful for. Things like family, trucks (you know for Greg), the gospel, our kids stuffed dogs, being healthy and other things. I haven't thought of all of them yet as you can see.

Also, I've decided to try to bring thankfulness to dinner. Each night we are going to take turns to say things we are grateful for during that day. With each thing we are grateful for we are going to take a glass bead I bought at the dollar store and fill up a glass bowl that my friend Natalie gave me. I figure at this rate the bowl should be full by the time Thanksgiving comes. Hopefully it turns out. I'll let you know.

Now comes your turn. Are there any activities that your family does or ideas that you want your family to do to celebrate Thanksgiving and gratitude? All help and ideas are welcome. And for all the help you give me I want to thank you, in advance.