Thanksgiving Memory Making Ideas
This year I am looking for more ways to incorporate the true meaning of each holiday into our family celebrations. It’s always a challenge when you have lots of little people to plan a celebration they can understand and engage in. I have looked high and low for a nice book that tells the true story of the first Thanksgiving. So many leave God totally out of the reason for Thanksgiving instead of giving Him his rightful place as the center of what we do.
The First Thanksgiving is great for use throughout the month of November. It includes an abbreviated narrative for very young children. We have found, though, on the actual Thanksgiving day we need to keep it simple as we have 33 family members present at our celebration, 11 of those being 8 years and under! So, this year, Rick has written an “Uncle Rick Tells the Story of the First Thanksgiving” to read during our family celebration. We would love to share that with you for use with your family. Hope you enjoy it. (We plan to make it into a nicely illustrated book for families within the next year.)
Another way we hope to direct our thinking toward thankfulness to God this Thanksgiving is by making place cards (decorated with stickers) for each person present at our table. Instead of the person’s name, we will write a Scripture verse that deals with thankfulness, highlighting things for which the Scriptures tell us to acknowledge our thankfulness to God and others.
At the completion of our meal, we’ll go around the table in order, having each person read the verse in front of them. We will then ask some simple questions to help everyone focus on the meaning and application of the Scriptures. Here are the verses I plan to use. Hopefully, you may find it useful as you plan your celebration, too.
We’ve redesigned our Thanksgiving Time Capsule this year. It’s a record of goals set and goals accomplished, and reflections on notable things that happened since the last Thanksgiving. After our Thanksgiving meal, we pass around the sheets that we have filled out in years past. Each person reads their own to see if they met their goals and be reminded of how God has blessed their life.
Then, everyone takes some time to fill out the new time capsule form. We store everyone’s form in an old popcorn container in the attic until next year. Older siblings or parents can help the little ones fill out one, too. It’s neat to see how your young ones will answer questions like “What is a lesson God has taught you this year”. Please feel free to use it with your family or use it as a springboard to personalize one for your family’s needs.
Our family wishes you a blessed day of gratefulness to our Lord and Savior!
Be sure to check out our Thanksgiving blog postings from years past.
We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. Psalm 78:4
