It was my turn to teach the lesson for Family Home Evening tonight, so I decided we would talk about gratitude. We hadn't had a lesson about it leading up to Thanksgiving, but Christmas time is also a season of gratitude and I wanted to make sure we talked about it.
I gave each of us a piece of paper and a pen and then told them we were going to list take 6 minutes to list all the things we are thankful for. Once we got started none of us looked at the clock and we ended up writing furiously for 12 minutes. After we stopped (really we all could have kept going) we took turns reading our lists one item at a time; it ended up having a good rhythm to it. Randy said one thing, then Landon, then me, then Whitney, then Randy and so on. It was so cool to hear all the things we listed, especially as they overlapped each other. (I kept hearing it as a voice over on a great video montage.)
We also discussed how even if we weren't able to have any presents for Christmas we would still be so blessed. I'm sure the kids felt a moment of panic, but they also understood that we really do have so much to be grateful for.
**Thoughts??**
Comment Window Tidbit: Where do all my commenters go on the weekends? Seriously?
8 comments:
Your commitment to family is something I admire.
What a great lesson. I need that lesson every once in a while! I love that everyone just wrote and wrote. And I like to see everyone's handwriting (in general, i'm interested to see how people write)
Weekends are crazy now that the holidays are here and I don't have the time to sit down like I want. The sad thing is I have had 2 comments since Friday. I am starting to wonder if anyone is out there?
I think this needs to be apart of our lesson tomorrow. We are going shopping for all of our 12 days of Christmas but I could easily tie this in. We didn't do a Thanksgiving FHE like we should have. I wasn't very good at FHE's during November. Jason was gone for every Monday.
Great idea for FHE! (Eva needs this one, she always tells me during her prayers that she can't think of anything she is thankful for! ARGH!!) Your kids are at such a great age to be able to do so many things.
Expressing gratitude always makes me feel even more grateful.
This is a great lesson. My kids usually have a slow start when we make lists and are still at the ages of needing prompts but I know they could do this. I love the long lists. Wonderful.
I love gratitude lists. They're my all-time favorite. I think it's wonderful that you're teaching your children to think in terms of what they're grateful for—that's a mentality that has seriously improved my overall attitude.
i always love your christmas tree...
are you ever afraid that as soon as you express thanks for something, it's going to be taken away from you? like a trial of faith, or something.
Oh my goodness! I LOVE this idea!!! My younger too are too little to write like this, but I am going to adjust it to fit us. What a GREAT idea!!!!
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