~ Making a Gratitude Banner ~
With a quick glance at my calendar, I see there are only 13 days till Halloween ~ which means ~ there only 14 days till November! And on November 1st we begin our annual gratitude project - so now's the time to get our materials together!
Every year we like to do something a little different for this project. I particularly like making "thankful trees," using bits and pieces of real nature - i.e. branches, waxed leaves and the like - but with a pair of mischievous kittens in the house this year, I think it will be best to keep things simple. Or at the very least, inedible.
So last weekend I bought some cardstock in pretty autumn shades, and I plan to cut out 24 leaves in a variety of colors, one for each night through Thanksgiving. Each square piece of paper should allow for two leaves, going by the size and shape of my template. (Which is just an oak leaf shape I drew and cut out from tag paper.)
Now, the plan is this ...
Every night at supper, we will take a leaf from our pile (neatly nestled in a pretty basket) and talk about what we are thankful for that day. I will write down all our responses and then hang that leaf on our "gratitude banner."
Our banner will be, very simply, a long string of grapevine ball lights. I'll have Bill hang it above the windows in the learning room.
I'm sure you can guess why I say "above" the windows and not "around."
Scamps.
Each leaf will be hung from the garland - but! - the lights will not actually be lit till Thanksgiving night. (On Turkey Day we'll add our final leaf and ask our dinner guests to join us in expressing our gratitude for all that we have.)
I think it's sort of nicely symbolic to wait till the banner is full - of blessings and gratitude - before lighting it up. We'll let thankfulness fill our hearts (and our windows) and on Thankgiving night - as we head into the darkest nights of the year - our banner will shine all the more brightly.
So this is the plan and the prep (save for the cutting which I'll work on this week - and the light-stringing which I'll nag ask Bill to do over Halloween weekend). I'll post about the execution stage of the project on the first (or maybe the second) of November!
Now, speaking of gratitude projects, I must point you all to this lovely article over at Parents.com - a collection of 20 cute crafts to say "thanks" with your kids. In fact, one of the projects might seem a little familiar to some of my readers ~ our "Gratitude Seeds" from last year is idea #10. :)
Well, I hope you all had a nice Tuesday! Our day began cool and raw and I was wondering where the anticipated "lukewarm" weather could be ... but just after lunchtime the skies cleared up and the sun shone strongly. The temps did indeed rise to near 70. Such a treat!
And I did get my 2011 holiday planner assembled today - and of course I took plenty of pictures! - so I will post all about it in another day or two. For now, I must be off ... but I will see you all again very soon!
:)
