Thanksgiving Traditions and Important Dates

This morning was our November meeting, and we focused on gratitude and how to infuse a spirit of thankfulness within our homes. Many of us left with new ideas of traditions we want to begin to teach our children about being thankful every day. In fact, I just got done searching for limbs in my backyard in order to make a thankful tree! Luckily, since we haven't raked since Hurricane Isaac, I had plenty to chose from. :) Here are some of the ideas that were discussed.

• Decorate a shoebox with pictures and drawings of what your child is thankful for. Put a slit in the top, and have your child put cards, pictures, or objects in the box that represent what your child is thankful for. On Thanksgiving, share the box and its contents with family members.
• Buy a bag of Styrofoam balls from a craft store. Paint the balls brown, and use a craft stick to attach a small ball to a large one, making a turkey's body and head. Each day, have a child write or color on a feather what they are thankful for and glue the feather on the body. This can also be done with a construction paper turkey. Encourage your child to think throughout the day what they will write on their feather the following day.

Betsy and her Thankful Turkey!

• Go on a nature walk with your children and pick up some large limbs. Put them in a jar or vase, and cut leaves out of paper. Use string or yarn to hang the leaves on the tree, again with words or pictures representing what your child is thankful for. Allow older children to come up with what they are thankful for each day, and prompt your smaller ones with what you know they would like.

Christa and her family's Thanksgiving Tree

• Use brown construction or scrapbook paper and cut an outline of branches on a piece of paper. Either use large punches or cut out circles or leaves, and decorate them with what the child is thankful for. You can hang this up on their door or in their room, giving them a great visual helping them to remember to be thankful.

Christine and her son Adam's Thanksgiving Tree 

• Fisher Price has great printable cards that your child can color and give to friends and family for all sorts of occasions. You can look through them at http://www.fisher-price.com/en_US/GamesAndActivities/ColoringPages/index.html

We hope you all get some neat ideas to share with your family this season! One thing that really stuck out in my mind from this morning is being thankful for not only what we have, but also for who God is. Even if we lost everything, we would still be loved by a good, merciful, and constant God. And that is an amazing blessing!

 We also have some important dates coming up. 

• Friday, November 30 at 9:30 we will be having a MOPS-wide playdate at the ROC. We will be showing a Christmas movie and sharing snacks together!
• Friday, December 7th is our next MOPS meeting. We will be making scarves out of t-shirts, so bring a solid t-shirt you have laying around your house to the meeting. If you don't have one at home, you can always pick up a cheap one at Hobby Lobby by using a 40% off coupon! We'll also be having a Happy Birthday Jesus party at the end of our meeting for our children.

Please be sure to keep up with our new blog as we continue to share news with our MOPS family! Feel free to leave in the comments any Thanksgiving traditions you and your family already participate in or anything you were inspired to try as a result of today's meeting! I'm off to cut out leaves out of cardstock for our family's new Thankful Tree.