Thanksgiving Family Tradition Ideas & Thankful Pumpkin Activity

With chilly weather nipping at your door and Christmas music echoing in your ears long after you leave the department store it’s hard not to want to skip Thanksgiving and go straight into the merry and festive Christmas holiday.

Though skipping Thanksgiving Fall fun & décor is very tempting it’s not really an option here especially when the month starts with our Thankful Pumpkin Family Activity. I did contemplate it.

Embracing Thankfulness as a Family – One of the values we want to instill in our kids is thankfulness. We try to find ways to incorporate it into our daily life but it get’s the spotlight on our Thanksgiving month. We did this activity when they were younger but now we are doing a Gratitude & Thanksgiving Countdown.

Thankful Pumpkin Activity–  I used 3d Craft paint and painted Be Thankful on a large pumpkin. Last year, it said Count Your Blessings (shown above). Every day at dinner time we talk about what were thankful for and then I write it on the pumpkin and trace it with a bronze 3d paint.

The bottom picture we recorded our thankful thoughts each day on the pumpkin in circular from in the first picture I just wrote it anywhere.

As a child, my parents did a great job by showing us what a heart of service and giving is all about.

Thanksgiving Family Tradition Ideas

Here are some of the things we did and other ideas that we wanted to do:

• Volunteer at your local shelter to help feed the homeless on Thanksgiving.
• Go to a nearby poverty-stricken community and give out baskets of non-perishable foods.
• Invite your neighbors or others that don’t have anywhere to go to your thanksgiving meal.
• Make Thankful Rolls – Whip up your favorite roll recipe then write a thankful note and insert it in the roll and bake.
• Visit your local home for Senior Citizens and have your children color with them. Or they can make a thankful tree for them in their lobby and the seniors can add to them as they go.
• Thankful Tree– Cut some small tree limbs and insert them in a vase. Cut out leaves using scrap paper and tie them on letting guest fill them out and place back on tree.
• Make a I am Thankful Cards– Grab a binder clip and notecards with one end hole punched to keep them together and pull them out each year for your family to recall.  On each notecard have your family write either weekly or on T-giving day what they are thankful for.  If you have little ones that can’t write have them draw a picture and then you can write below it what it is if it’s not regonizable.
• Make and give Thank You Notes to your loved ones, neighbors, community helpers…
• Gratitude & Thanksgiving Countdown – As you countdown to Thanksgiving each day you get to share about something you’re grateful for.  Here’s our no sew countdown calendar that we enjoy doing at each meal.

What are some of your Family Thanksgiving Traditions?