Gratitude Garland for Thanksgiving

The dictionary on my Mac's dashboard defines "thanksgiving" as an expression of gratitude. I am so grateful for all that God has done for our family over the last year. I wanted to try to think of a creative and memorable way for us express our gratefulness. It is nice to have an excuse like Thanksgiving to take time to reflect on all that is important and to be able to express our gratitude.

I think I have mentioned before that every Thursday night our worship team with their families come for dinner, bible study and then we practice. It is a special night in our house. There is something about sharing a meal and then studying God's word together that is important to the spiritual growth of a community like our team. During this time each week we are able to pour into one and other. To pray for each other, to love each other and each others kids, to be family. Even though Thursday's have become the busiest day of our week we look forward to this time together. To show our appreciation for these people that come faithfully every Thursday we decided to cook them a Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.

To get everyone in the mood of thankfulness I had the kids help me with this easy craft that I call a "Gratitude Garland" I fully admit that this craft idea was not originally mine. I think I saw it last year around American Thanksgiving some where on the web but I wasn't able to find it again so I am probably calling it something different. We completed it on Thursday night and it was a big hit. It now hangs in our dining room and we are reminded every time we walk by of all of our blessings.


You will need:

Some yarn or string
construction paper in fall colours (red, yellow, brown, orange)
pen(s)
scissors
leaf pattern
scotch tape

Instructions:

1. Make a simple leaf pattern that you can trace. We used a maple leaf but you could easily use a simpler leaf. Or you can do different shapes of leaves. If you have a football shaped cookie cutter it will make great leaves when you trace it.

2. Trace your leaf pattern on different colours of the construction paper. The number you need depends on how long you would like your garland to be.

3. Cut out your leaves.

4. Hang up a string of yarn where you would like your garland to be.

5. As friends and family come over for thanksgiving dinner have them write what they are most thankful for on a leaf and hang it with a little piece of scotch tape.

This is such an easy craft that all of my kids were able to help with some aspect of it. We had a great time with our worship team writing on the leaves and giving thanks to God for all that He has done. Many blessings to all of you this Thanksgiving Holiday.