Thanksgiving and Gratitude

Last Sunday one of the Brethren in our ward gave a talk on being Thankful and being Grateful.  He asks which of the two was better and then proceeded to point out the difference and tell us which is the greater virtue.  It was a good talk and one that I appreciated and needed.  You see, being thankful is usually only expressed in words, while gratitude is expressed in actions.

You can be thankful for your warm coat in winter, but you show gratitude by helping others be warm.  It really gave me something to think about.  How am I not only showing my thankfulness, but also my gratitude?

I love Thanksgiving.  It is my most favorite holiday and it bothers me that a lot of the world just glanced right over it.  I think that if more people took the time to remember the purpose of Thanksgiving (not just shoving turkey down our throats) and acted on their thankfulness and gratitude the world would be a much better place.

Okay, I'm off my soap box.  On to cute things.

Jefferson's preschool class had the cutest homework assignment.  Each child was given a picture of a plain turkey and was told to work on it with their parents and disguise the turkey so it would be spared from the Thanksgiving feast.  It was so much fun coming up with an idea and then doing it together.  I made extra copies of the turkey before we disguised it so we can do this every year.

We chose to disguise the turkey as a fire breathing dragon.

I think it turned out pretty darn cool looking.  Jefferson loves it.

Some of the other disguises he saw in class included: and angry bird, a sheep, an elephant, Santa, a dog, a cow, etc.  Tons of fun.

Another tradition we started this year was the Thankful Tree.  It is such a simple yet great idea that everyone should do it.  I just gather branches from outside and stuck them in a vase and used construction paper to hide the bottom of the branches.

For FHE one night we talked about Jesus and how he gave us all and how we should always be thankful and show gratitude.  I cut out leaves of different size and color and every morning we each got a leaf and wrote what we were/are thankful for.  It was great to have that time to reflect. 

You can tell straight away which leaves are Jefferson's.  They crack me up.  That first day he thought really hard and then loudly proclaimed, "PIRATES!"  He is so funny.

On just a cute note... when we were leaving for school a couple days ago it was cold enough for hats.  Jefferson wanted to wear his dragon hat and as soon as he put it on Addison started grunting for hers.  Aren't they the cutest thing?