Today we are continuing the second in a two-part feature. Girlfriends Coffee Hour leaders and members have shared some of their Thanksgiving traditions for us! Do you have a special tradition for Thanksgiving? Leave a comment and tell us about it! We would love to hear what it is! If not, maybe the stories shared below will spark some ideas for new traditions in your home!
Have a blessed Day-After Thanksgiving Day!
Jennifer
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Liz – For Thanksgiving – I have a thankful jar that sits on the living room table year round. All year, we add things to the jar that we are thanksful for and on Thanksgiving we pull out the pieces of paper and read them . When we are done, ( a few weeks later) I paste them all into a yearly thankful journal, so I will be able to keep the kids thoughts, thankfulness and handwriting forever.
For Christmas – I wrap 25 Christian themed Christmas books the week after Thanksgiving and put them under a special Book Tree in the kids room. Just a small Christmas tree in their room that they decorate every year with handmade ornaments. Every night of Advent, before bed, we unwrap a book and read it together. It reminds them of the reason we celebrate Christmas and we get some quality time each night to spend together. On Christmas Eve , we read the Christmas Story together as a family.
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Sarah – We always buy our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. We go as an entire family, aunts, uncles, grandmas & grandpas. It’s a lot of fun!!
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Laurie – On Thanksgiving evening, my boys and go for a walk, start the Christmas music, break out the hot cocoa and put up our decorations. Then we light candles, turn out all the lights, lay under the tree and tell what our Christmas list is. <3
love that time with my family!!
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Teresa: Since we have had so many girls living with us, we make a menu together, invite friends who do not have a place to go on Thanksgiving and make dishes in shifts together. Last year was good, here at home, but my mom and brothers were 3 hours away without us.
Can’t please everyone all the time. We do talk about the things that have changed in the past year, what we are thankful for and what we have learned. Our family is always in a state of change.
We stress the importance of being “ever thankful”, not just on Thanksgiving Day. It has helped us survive some pretty rocky times the last few years.
Shandy – Watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and having a big dinner with the whole family prepared by my mom!
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Jennifer B. – My sister made me a “thankful” book 3 years ago. (she is into scrapbooking and it is beautiful) Everyone at our house on Thanksgiving wrote on a page stating what they were thankful for, even great-grandma on my husbands side! I love to read thru the book to read everyone’s blessings…..btw, our family has grown by four, soon-to-be 5 children since then so I cannot wait to read this years blessings of thanks from everyone…..how precious it will be to have for my grandchildren, great grand children etc. A great family keepsake! 🙂
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Donna – Our Thanksgiving tradition is two fold. First in order to enjoy the meal we start at the head of the table, take our time and go around the whole table, ( there are usually around 20 or more of us!) and say what we have been thankful for that year. Then after the meal is over and cleaned up we play a game of some sort with everyone who is there. One of us shops for a new game every year and bring it to play. It’s lots of fun and helps us all interact together! Just what Thanksgiving is all about!!
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Colleen –
Events: We have an open house *usually on thanksgiving night but occasionally moved to friday evening*. It is our ‘praise and prayer and pie’ event! Very casual. sometimes we just have a few folks; once we had over 20—that was SO nice! Love just sitting around singing praise songs and some hymns; My husband, Robert, plays his guitar.
Food:
Robert and i always brine the turkey together…it is quite a process but i like that we do it together. (he must, too, ’cause he already asked me if i need the giant stockpot down yet 😉 no, dear, not yet!)
Frou-frou:
I start putting up the fall/thanksgiving decorations in early October! When Robert brings the storage totes (yes, there are 3 of them!) up from the basement, I get so excited! There’s always a couple of things that I don’t remember we have; such fun! And, of course, the little mementos that our grandchildren have made. Last year and this year, we made a paper chain that we just keep adding onto…you have strips of paper (like construction paper), and you write a praise or something you are thankful for, etc.; and then just keep adding on to the end. We always ask those who join us for thanksgiving dinner AND the praise & prayer time to add onto it, too.
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Thanks Jennifer for putting all this together!! It was fun reading everyones traditions!!
How fun reading all of these traditions!