thankful door: reminding our kids to be grateful every day

Every year around this time, when the holiday catalogs start rolling in and fancy white lights and gold ribbons start popping up on our streetlights, my kids get a little starry-eyed.

I think we all do.

But like many kids their age, mine are thinking about what they want and what color they must have and how many they hope to find under the Christmas tree.

So it’s important for us to always do a little bit of reflecting and thinking about what we already have and how grateful we should be for it all. Really. We all need reminders.

It’s easy.

And though it’s not perfect, our thankful door helps.

At least a little.

Here’s the skinny. . .

Thankful Door–Reminding Our Kids to be Thankful Every Day:

The way you do this can, and should, vary according to the size constraints of your home and what will work for your kids. But the goal is to find some central location and run with it.

Use a door. Use a wall. Use placemats or leaves or your refrigerator.

This year, we kept it simple.

We used some simple red letter cut-outs for the words ‘thank you for. . . .’ and a poster board and some orange construction paper as a background.

Cute turkey notepads and pumpkin notepads were perfect for writing down the things that we were thankful for.

It’s a work in progress, and we’re hoping that by the end of the month, our door will be filled with all of the things that our family is thankful for.

To begin, this weekend, Cora and I started with a few basics: God, our family, our pets, clothes and food, and our home. We added items, we chatted, and we laughed when we wrote ‘Brady’ and he walked over to the door and stared at his name. He really did.

He is so smart.

I always appreciate seeing how the things that we are thankful for change year to year and even day to day.

After bouts of rainy weather, we’re happy for sun; after cold and windy days, we’re happy for warm coats.

I will do this as long as I can and as long as the kids are in the house with us. It’s a great reminder for every one of us as we walk out of our door to check our moods and to say a quick prayer of thanks for all we have.

It doesn’t matter if you read this today or two weeks from now–what matters is that somewhere, sometime during this busy month you take time to rally with your kids and give thanks for all you have.

Here are two quickie ideas of ways we’ve done this in the past: