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Make it one in which ‘grateful’ defines the moment
Thanksgiving always falls on the third Thursday of November, though you wouldn’t know it at my house. This is because my preparations begin a full two months before there is even an inkling of family, food and football. It is an annual ritual of primping and polishing for the dozens of relatives who trek every year to my home for this important meal. By the time they arrive, my home is gleaming with candles, teeming with goblets of wine and steaming with the smell of the day’s meal. We turn off the TV. We gather and admire, but despite all my hard work and attention to every delectable detail of the day, there is a chorus of groans when I suggest that we acknowledge our blessings. It never fails. “Come on, now,” I chide. “This is the day, the one day where we should be grateful for the things we have.” The thankfulness comes, but only in reluctant fits and starts. Have we lost the meaning of Thanksgiving, I wonder? This year, I have done something different. This year, instead of fussing over the food or agonizing over the ambiance, I have made preparations of a different sort. This year, I have adopted an attitude of gratitude. Read on for ways to inspire thankfulness in your family this holiday season. Perhaps the most important thing you can do to encourage thankfulness is to model thankfulness. You can do this by taking time out of your busy day to ponder your blessings aloud. And it doesn’t have to always be a deep and insightful moment either. Stop and admire a beautiful sunset. Kids may not come pre-wired with feelings of appreciation. And because caring and sharing are important components to gratitude, look for ways to be helpful and giving towards others. Empathy is something that develops with time and maturity, so you may have to be patient with your little ones as they grow into grateful grown ups. Until then, team up to participate in charitable endeavors. Share the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday with your kids and set about writing up a list of your family’s shared blessings – together. See who can conjure up the best, the longest, the most thoughtful accounting of all the things for which you are grateful. Talk about why it is important to be appreciative of the things you have. Children are going to see the world differently than adults. Enjoy their innocence and praise their efforts and the love they show you. Let them know how good it is to feel loved and appreciated. Thank them for thanking you. And, above all, enjoy your many little blessings this Thanksgiving! Kerri Mabee of Temecula is a regular contributor to OC Family Magazine. Happiness is…gratitude! A study and series of experiments at UC Davis in 2003 found that people who are grateful and recognize their blessings are actually happier, experience fewer symptoms of physical illness and are less prone to “anger, envy, resentment and depression.” UC Davis psychologist Robert Emmons published his findings in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Source: news.ucdavis.edu/ |
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