Our Thanksgiving journal

As I was growing up, my mom instituted a Thanksgiving tradition. One evening prior to Thanksgiving day, our family would gather around the table and make a family thanksgiving tree.

Basically, we drew a big tree on a poster-sized piece of paper, dated it, and then we'd each grab markers and write down things we were thankful for-- usually just a short phrase or even one word. When we were done, mom would hang it up near our table and there it would remain for the next month or two... a daily reminder of the things our family was grateful for.

I loved doing this, and wanted to have a tradition similar to that in our home. I wasn't quite sold on the tree-on-a-paper idea, although Mark and I tried that for a couple years when we were first married. What I didn't like about that format was that I wanted to save them from year to year, and I didn't want another stack of papers- least of all poster-sized papers.

When our daughter was born, I came up with the idea to make a family Thanksgiving journal. We basically do the same thing-- record the things we're thankful for-- we just do them in a spiral-bound book, and each family member gets a page.


It's really a sort of family scrapbook-- we use words and photos. Each year I begin the new section by using a page to mark the year, and then the following page is Mark's, the next page mine, and so on. We take an evening and work on it together. Our children get to color on their pages, too- and choose their own photos. We help them think of the things they are thankful for-- and obviously two of our three children can't write, yet-- we write for them.

Ella's pages, last year


Our Thanksgiving journal sits on an end table in our home during the month of November. Others have the opportunity to peruse it when they're in our home, and of course our children look through it frequently. And it is a delight to look back at the things God has done in our family through the years.

I'd love to hear some of your Thanksgiving traditions!