I enjoy pretty much the entire holiday season from Halloween to New Years Day! I mean who doesn’t love dressing up for Halloween and taking their kids trick-or-treating or the beautiful fall colors that surround the days leading up to Thanksgiving or decking the halls for Christmas and maybe getting a little dolled up for New Years Eve?!
But this mom’s favorite holiday by far is Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving won’t leave you with with an endless bowl of never ending candy that you will probably end up throwing away or with an empty wallet after purchasing gifts for all your nieces, nephews, siblings and of course playing the part of Santa. Thanksgiving won’t leave you exhausted because you stayed up until midnight the night before watching the infamous ball drop on NBC.
Thanksgiving will leave most of us with a nice, full belly and a sense of thankfulness for all of our blessings in life. What a perfect holiday for our children. What a perfect lesson for our children. Spending time with each other whether it is a small family gathering, a huge family reunion or maybe you spend Thanksgiving with great friends or helping feed the less fortunate. A chance to just slow down, maybe help someone in need, smell the pumpkin pie, give a loved one a hug, sit down and just watch a football game together or simply enjoy the people around you with conversation and laughter.
What an amazing thing for our children to witness, to learn from, and to appreciate. Thanksgiving is not surrounded by a stigma of an abundance of candy or the need to get the perfect gifts from Santa (not knocking Christmas, there are plenty of ways to teach our children the true meaning of Christmas) but what I love about Thanksgiving is that the meaning is just implied. It’s just there staring you in the face. Be Thankful. A simple concept for a child to wrap their head around.
Its a time not to worry, not to stress, but just take a day to stop and think about your blessings and just be thankful for them. To enjoy one another’s company, to revel in what an amazing gift it is to enjoy a meal, or a board game or a conversation with family, friends or even a stranger surrounding you (no matter how big or how small a gathering). A day to be thankful for the life you have been given.
That is something we should remind ourselves of more often and what could be more incredible than instilling that thankfulness in your child’s abundant heart.
“Give thanks for each new morning with its light, for rest and shelter of the night, for health and food, for love and friends, for everything thy goodness sends.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson-
