Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The Giving (Thanks) Tree



Found this idea somewhere in the blogsphere, and it felt just right for us. Growing up, we always had an Easter tree--a stick planted in a vase, to hold our blown eggs. I loved that tradition, and this reminded me of it. A Thanksgiving Tree. A place to hold our collective thoughts of gratitude when we come together tomorrow. Andi and I put up a few starter "leaves," and I'm hoping our guests will help us fill it before dinner.




I'm grateful for this place, as well. This chance to share with like-minded people. Thank you for reading, and commenting, and caring. Happy Thanksgiving.

Edited to add: Thanks for the comments! The tree is now full of so many thoughts. My 5-year-old niece particularly enjoyed it, and kept adding things: her own name "because I'm thankful for myself," other people, "babies," "cake," "friends," "love," and so many more. Reading everyone's contributions became our "grace" for the meal.

6 comments:

Luisa said...

What a wonderful tradition. I hope to incorporate something like that in family.

renee @ FIMBY said...

What a lovely idea. The kids and I painted a thanksgiving tree a couple years ago and put it up on the wall. Then we added items of thanks to the leaves. It was a nice feature in our home for a while.

Have a great thanksgiving and thanks for visiting FIMBY.

P. J. Grath said...

Lise, that is a beautiful idea and one I'm going to share with friends. Thank you for sharing it.

Heather said...

Lovely idea. I love finding traditions like that to add to our family life. We always go round the table after our Thanksgiving dinner (which is in October here in Cananda), taking turns lighting a tea light candle and saying what we are thankful for. It usually takes many times going round (and a LOT of candles) for us to say all our thankfuls, the boys love this tradition. I think next year we will try the the Giving Thanks Tree as well.

Andi said...

It was quite a treat, and seemed to really go over well with the younger ones in the family. :)

Karen said...

I love this idea, and I am inspired to incorporate this into our ever evolving family traditions...