Thanks and Christmas

Every year for Thanksgiving, I set a little decorative bowl out next to some pretty scraps of paper and I encourage everyone in the family to write what they're thankful for. The bowl collects all our thanks (of course, I write out my kids'--very amusing--entries for them. . . last year someone was thankful for underwear).

I read through them at Thanksgiving dinner (which is never turkey, by the way, none of us are fans), and then. . . what? What should I do with all those precious scraps of thanks? The first year I copied the list into a journal, but I want something more novel to do with them.

Thanks to a blog I enjoy, Tatertots and Jello, I now have the PERFECT solution.  They did a post awhile back about a Christmas gift for newlyweds. And I'm totally stealing the idea.

This year I will put all our little, colorful scraps of thanks into a clear glass (or maybe plastic is more appropriate for now. . .) ornament to hang on the Christmas tree year after year. Of course, I'll paint the year on the ornament and every year we'll add a new ornament with new thanks, just shake it up and see what we appreciated most that year. Our scraps are tiny, so it'll look like a colorful little snowglobe (although I love the curls in the "Tatertots" post). Maybe I'll even post a picture to share with you all!

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