Our Thanksgiving Tree
by Michelle Jones

I recently read about a wonderful craft for Thanksgiving, called a Thanksgiving Tree.  I thought it was a wonderful idea and went right to work on making one for my own family.  Although I did not have the supplies needed to make the tree as described, I just made do with what I had. (By the way, you need to start this project at least a week before Thanksgiving.)

 

It's so simple, I can't believe we haven't been doing this for the last 10 years!  I took a leftover poster board from my daughters campaign for Student Council, turned it over and drew a big tree on the back with a black marker.  Then I colored in some green grass on the bottom, and colored the trunk of the tree brown with crayons.  The kids were getting excited, saying "Mom!  What are you doing?"  I told them I was making a thanksgiving tree, and the excitement grew even further.

 

Next, we cut out a stack of leaves from different colored construction paper; red, orange, green, brown, and I even threw in some blue.  As I began to do this, the kids were running around the house looking for scissors so they could help.  Just making the tree was a fun family event, and basically, at no extra expense.

 

Having nowhere to hang our Thanksgiving Tree, I simply taped it to the glass front of a hanging print we have in our dining room.  Then we attached a small envelope to the bottom corner, to hold our blank leaves.  Before I could even get the tree up, the kids were choosing which color leaf they wanted to write on first.  After we all picked a leaf from the envelope, we each wrote down something we were thankful for directly on the leaf.  Then we put our initial on the bottom.  The kids really like mine, an M, because it stands for Michelle and Mom too.

 

Every night at dinnertime, we all look forward to building our Thanksgiving Tree.  It has become quite beautiful.  But the meanings within our leaves, of all the things we are thankful for (including each other), are the most beautiful of all.  One night when my husband came home late, the children ran to the tree picking a leaf for him to write on.  When they asked him what he was thankful for that day, he answered "I'm thankful for Michelle."  The kids thought that was so cool, because earlier that night I had written his name on my leaf too.

 

Making a Thanksgiving Tree has been a wonderful family experience, and we intend on making this an annual tradition. I heard the saying recently, "Make EVERY day a Thanksgiving day," and we're planning to do just that!

 

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