21 Days of Contagious Gratitude: For the Whole Family Challenge
November 1st- 21st
There are over 21 bloggers who have joined forces because we believe that gratitude can be contagious and we desire to spend this month being grateful with our families. Each day a different blogger will walk along side of you in this challenge and share their experience. Stop by and visit their website on the date listed below to read their Contagious Gratitude story or activity.
I hope you join me in this 21 Days of being thankful.
It’s so easy to complain, grumble or to not be content with our situation, our body, our home, our kids, our food, our job, our spouse, our parents, our school, our friends and life as we know it. In effort, to be less of that and be filled with joy, I want to challenge myself, my family and you to be more aware of the blessings we are surrounded with each day.
My hope is that you will find beauty and blessings in the mundane, in the beautiful, in the ugly as you: change diapers, wash dishes, sit in holiday traffic, stir the pot of soup, look into your spouses eyes, hold your child in your arms… We are constantly surrounded by small miracles let’s open our eyes and embrace them. May the Lord open the eyes of my heart so I can see them!
We will discover joy when we discover gratitude.
How to join in the fun! Nov 1st -21st
1. Let others know about our 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge for the Whole Family and use the hashtag #21DaysGratitude. Our hope is that it’s contagious and 1000′s of families join in so help us get the word out. In the midst of our busyness it’s easy to forget to pause and be thankful. Sometimes we are in the midst of difficult circumstances and we struggle with being thankful and that’s when we need thanksgiving to intervene.
2. Stop, reflect and engage in a moment of thankfulness each day this month, with your family. It can be big or small moments of gratitude.
“Hurry always empties the soul.” ~ Ann Voskamp
3. Share your moment on your blog with a photo, on facebook, twitter, pinterest or your preferred social network. If you’re doing this as a family let your kids snap a photo of something they are thankful for. It can be as simple as a taking a picture of a note written on a napkin that says “I am thankful I get to hold these little pudgy fingers”. You can journal it or do a service project. Make it simple or get as creative as you like.
4. Don’t worry if you are getting a late start or if you skipped a day. Just jump in and follow along.
Photo or Writing Prompts Printable: Feel free to come up with your own reflections of gratitude or if you need some prompts see below. (right click on image, then copy and paste into your document and print) Adjust the list below for your little ones as needed.
If you enjoy our post, feel free to follow us on Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook and our readers preferred way via email.
~To fully live we must embrace the small miracles of the moment.~
This is the schedule of the 30 fabulous bloggers participating in the 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge. Come back and let us know you’re participating either leave a comment or link up your post from your blog or a picture via FB in our 21 Days of CONTAGIOUS Gratitude!
November 1st -21st
1 Becky Spence Shares her awesome ABC of Thanksgiving with free printables for the little ones.
and Zina Harrington from Let’s Lasso the Moon: Starting a Gratitude Journal
2 Deborah J Stewart Thankful from a Grandmothers perspective
3 Jennifer Farr – Puppy Love, Puppy Life Lessons
4 Stacy Teet -Teachers don’t just teach our children….
and Jennifer Fischer – Dinner Table Gratitude
5 Catherine Collins A Weak Heart and a Thankful Heart
and Becky http://www.kidworldcitizen.or
6 Mia Wenjen List of Thanksgiving books and being thankful books
and Heather Ruppel He survived! Heart Surgery on Our Baby
7 Gina Kimmel Why I am thankful for my baby’s birthmother
and Kelly Innes Thankful to Marry the Man of My Choice (not everyone gets that opportunity)
8 Megan Sheakoski Reading is Magical ,
and Genny Upton Graveyards, Grandkids & Gratitude: A Personal Story And Tree of Thanks Activity
9 Melissa Klinker Charming gardeners who make our soul blossom…. Printable
and Adrienne Weeks Teaching Gratitude by Giving
10 Kylie Gardner The more you’re grateful the easier it gets to be…
11 Frances Diaz-Evans Discovering the World through My Sons Eyes
12 Trisha Stanley One of the lessons learned from: our child’s illness
and Tina Pearson My Changed Perspective on being a Stay at home Working mom
13 Carolyn Elbert Mom Teaches Gratitude to her kids after her town is hit by Sandy
14 Susan Case Teaching Kids to Express Kindness & Gratitude to SOLDIERS!
and Deirdre Smith My One Butt Kitchen and how I am now thankful for it
15 Jen Goode Making a Thankful Tree
Deborah Flora Capturing Thankfulness with lovely photos and sentiments
Kim Black Vij- Reflectful Cleaning- Clean a room and as you pick up be thankful for the things you gather
16 Marnie Craycroft Gratitude Soup Book Inspired Activity
and Britany Morazan Thanksgiving Tradition: The Baking Blessing
17 Ness Hoffmann Reflections on “Enough is a Feast.”
and Kathi Denfeld Lullaby of Thanksgiving- Precious reflections
18 Adele Crozier – A Complete Home
Kristi Delp - Every Perfect Give is From Above- Thankful for my girls!
19 Kendall Soto Kids are a Blessing
and Kristina Buskirk Popcorn Thank You Gift Activities
20 Angelique Felix Thankful for My Body
and Leanna Why I am Grateful
21 Margarita Woodley Why I am Grateful
and Deb Chitwood Thankful for Family Values
~~~~ Other post you may enjoy~~~~~
Random Acts of Kindness Coin Jar
Make A Difference With Our Kids Bucket List
Thanksgiving Countdown Ideas and Grateful Activities for adults and kids
Grab the button if you would like to add it to your sidebar or to your post to help get the word out.
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Looking forward to this!!!
Great initiative
Angelique
Angelique, I am so glad you are joining in the fun!
I am so excited for this!
Kendall, I am too! I can’t wait to get it started with our kids and to read all the stories, activities…
Count me in!! Just shared your photo on Facebook.
Lou Ann Donovan
@louanndonovan
blog: http://www.live-young.com/
Lou Ann, Yay! Glad to have you participate. Thanks for the shout out!
This is awesome. I would love for you to link the challenge up at my November Family Challenge. It will be live on November 5th at True Aim.
Thanks, I will try to remember to link it up! Feel free to share it on your blog if you wish
This is confirmation for what I’m doing in my Sunday school class. I challenged them to create a gratitude journal for the month of November. Each day they have to write 5 things they are grateful for. It has to be something positive and they can only list it once. I’ve also decided to start doing some form of voluneeter project each month with my boys. I can’t wait to get started.
Yolana,
So very awesome, isn’t it cool when things work out like that. Blessing on your journey of thankfulness and service outreach with your families!
I’m looking forward to this, Mari! Thanks so much for organizing it! I featured the challenge in my November Family Gratitude Activities post at http://raisingfigureskaters.com/2012/10/31/november-family-gratitude-activities/
Deb, It’s my pleasure, by the way I love the list!
So excited to join in!! Thanks for organizing such a great challenge!
I am going to join in. . . another opportunity to think about thankfulness. . . Awesome!
So excited to join this!! Such a great time of year to remember our blessings! Thank you!!!
Thank you for this! I think I am going to make a tree with brown paper grocery bags. Each day, we will pick something we are thankful for and write it on a leaf to add to the tree. It will be a visual reminder to be thankful. Thank you for the prompt to keep me prayerfully thankful!
Hi Mari, I just grabbed your gratitude button and put it in my blog. It’s so true that in the mayhem of life we forget to feel and show gratitude for so many things. I will be concentrating on the little things in life that we forget to be thankful for…..
OK… So I posted a notification on my blog and will be posting our gratitude starting today….
http://umamahlearningacademy.blogspot.ca/2012/11/are-you-thankful-each-day.html
I’m joining in! My daughter is still very young so I will just do it myself. Being thankful is so important.
This is just what I need right now. I’ve decided to join in via my facebook page. Each day I’m writing a paragraph as to what I’m grateful for and linking to this post. Thanks again.
Would love to join in – yesterday I was grateful for family…
http://superordinarymum.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/happy-birthday-to-me.html
Hi Mari, thanks for inviting us to the challenge. It’s only been the first day, but our family has loved doing it and been uplifted by it. We can’t wait to share our daily journey.
http://yannyblessing.blogspot.com/2012/11/day-1-21-days-of-gratitude.html
I posted a children’s book about gratitude and gratefulness. my plan is to post more. the original thought was 1 a day but that might be to much so the goal is now 3 a week leading up to thanksgiving. here is the first post http://lettersnumbersandbooks.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/marys-first-thanksgiving-an-inspirational-story-of-gratefulness/
sorry for the repost wasn’t sure it went through can you delete it: I posted a children’s book about gratitude and gratefulness. my plan is to post more. the original thought was 1 a day but that might be to much so the goal is now 3 a week leading up to thanksgiving. here is the first post http://lettersnumbersandbooks.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/marys-first-thanksgiving-an-inspirational-story-of-gratefulness/
I am thankful to be included!
Thank you again for organising this fabulous initiative. Can’t wait to be part of it!
this is such a great idea, I am very excited to have found it and just put up my first post! There are so many things to be grateful for and just writing and thinking about it makes me feel better and better! thanks
Excited to join this even if I’m late.http://www.mommysstrugglesandsnuggles.com/im-thankful/
Thank you so much for inspiring all of us to join in and share our gratitude all month long. Our post is now up on how we showed our gratitude to our home and also to my hubby who works so hard for our home! http://theeducatorsspinonit.blogspot.com/2012/11/teaching-gratitude-in-our-home-with-kids.html#
Mari thank you so much for creating this movement. It has been so inspiring to read through everyone’s posts and I’m so excited to be taking part.
Mari, I only discovered your challenge today but I hope you don’t mind if I join you for the last four days. Here is my post for today: http://mamashaven.com/2012/11/18/21-days-of-gratitude/
I just found it today, too! I’m not going to do anything elaborate with it, that’s not my way, but I did just print out the 21 Days of Contagious Gratitude sheet and will pack it with me in my suitcase to the family Thanksgiving. I think it will help me keep a good perspective