Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Thanksgiving Blessing Box

As a parent, I feel like I am always struggling to help the kids understand how blessed they are.  How just because their mom makes them clean their room, doesn't mean they live tortuous lives.  And how having a healthy well-rounded, but never-before-tried meal is not a punishment from on high. 

It seems like every November I come up with some grandiose idea of helping us to be more grateful in our daily lives and usually it lasts a week or so (if I'm really on top of things) then it fades back to business as usual. 

This year we decided to try a Blessing Box.  On November 1st I set it out in the living room, with some slips of paper and told the kids we were going to daily write down something we were grateful for and add it to the box.

As I mentioned, usually this type of thing doesn't last long at our house, but this year it caught fire  and we each added a slip daily to the box.  A couple of times that we skipped a day, we would make up for it the next day with adding an extra slip. 

In the end we ended up with a full box and now we've spent the last week, going through the box and reading them aloud.  Some of them are cliche.  Some are silly.  But some are also really touching. 

After we read each slip, the rest of the family will yell out, "Yay for taking a walk with a friend" (or whatever the slip happened to say).  It added a little humor as well as some family involvement. 
I decided that it's kind of cool when you stick with something for a while and I hope that we can find similar traditions for other holidays that will add meaning, like this one did. 

*************
Here is a random sampling of some of the slips (written exactly as they are on the slips):

I am grateful for hair dye.
I'm thankful for chess.
Vacation.
My boots.
I am grateful for sunny skies and awesome 5-mile run.
Im gtfl tat i got to play. (sic)
The gorgeous weather.
Strong youth program. 

I'm grateful to eat a dinner I didn't cook myself.  Thanks Daddy!
Squirrels

Math test
I Im gtfl tat I had fun. 
I'm grateful for wonderful and inspiring talks at Stake Conference.
I'm thankful for the visitor center.
Taking a nap in homeroom.
I Im gtfl tat I got to rll dan the hll (roll down the hill).
My bed
Homework (?!) 


************

What about you?  Are you good at sticking with long-term "projects" like this?  Or do you prefer things that can started and finished on the same day?

*****

3 comments:

annalisa said...

I like the blessing box idea. I think it's a good way to look at the positive of the day :)

annalisa said...

P.S. Who wrote homework?!

K said...

I think we may need to implement an idea like this soon!

google analytics