Each Thanksgiving for the past few years, my daughters and I have decorated a very small artificial tree with homemade tags labeled with things we are thankful for. This year, we literally stood back and threw these little tags at the tree, which made us all laugh. This tree may not be the prettiest, but it’s definitely a fun tradition that I like to do with my daughters. Below is a picture of the little Thankful Tree:

In addition to the “Thankful Tree”, we did another simple project together on Thanksgiving that anyone can do at home. We cut strips of construction paper and wrote various things that we were thankful for on the papers. I was surprised when one of my daughters said she was thankful for “laundry”, but the fact that we have laundry means that we have clothes to wear. The fact we have dirty dishes means we have dishes to eat from and food to eat. (Just a side note: this reminds me of 1 Timothy 6:8) Once the strips were written on, I stapled them together into one long thankful chain. We definitely have a lot to be thankful for!

So why am I talking about Thanksgiving when today is actually Christmas? Well, today, I will hide a little pickle ornament somewhere in this little “Thankful” tree. This is another activity that we have been doing for the past few years, which I had mentioned in Pickles, Pickles, I Like Pickles. My daughters enjoy trying to see who can find it the fastest Christmas morning. Since the tree is so small, it really isn’t much of a challenge, but they insist I still do it.  It’s amazing how important some traditions seem to be.

Do you have any special holiday traditions? I would love to hear about them!

I think the little pickle ornament is cute, don’t you?

I know this time of the year can be especially challenging for many people. I hope that no matter what you may be going through, you are still able to have a nice day today. Merry Christmas!