By JULIA @ HOOKEDONHOUSES.NET
My girl Lily loves doing crafts. I showed you last month how she decorated the house for Halloween (you can see her artwork here). She was asking me to think of “something creative we can do together for Thanksgiving,” so we sat down and brainstormed about it a bit. And this is what we came up with.
We spent an afternoon cutting leaves out of construction paper. Now, every night when we sit down to dinner, Lily passes leaves around the table, and we each write down something we’re grateful for.
When we’re done writing, we give one clue about what we wrote and everyone tries to guess what it is. The kids love this game.
After dinner, Lily carefully tapes that day’s leaves on the kitchen window. Here are some we’ve got so far:
If you stop by our house for any reason during the month of November, expect to have a leaf and pen handed to you before you leave. As visitors have learned, my children will not rest until your leaf is taped to the window with all the others. They want the entire window to be covered by Thanksgiving Day.
What would you write on your leaf?
Now I just need to decide what to do with the leaves after Thanksgiving. I’d like to tape them into an album or find some other way of keeping them. (Any ideas?) It’ll be fun to look back and see what Lily was grateful for when she was 6 (like “kisis” and “hugs,” “frogs” and “dogs,” “momy” and “dady”). And I have to say it warmed my heart when my 13-year old said he was thankful for “family.”
Do you have any Thanksgiving traditions in your house?
Stop by The Inspired Room to see the other holiday ideas people are posting about today!
Want More Ideas for Thanksgiving?
- Inspiration for Planning Your Thanksgiving Feast
- Jessica Howard Brown’s “Twiggy Pitcher” for Your Thanksgiving Table
- Thanksgiving Tabletop Ideas
- We’re Making Leaf-Shaped Cookies & Using This Recipe for Buttercream Frosting!
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I LOVE this tradition. What a great idea your little one had. If I were to visit your house, my leaf would say “friends”. Have a good weekend, Julia!
Julia, what a great idea….you can save these too from year to year. I like this. And in years to come you can read back what everyone said including the little ones. What a wonderful thought.
Blessings,
Debbie
Great idea!! And have I ever mentioned that your Lily is adorable?!?! No traditions here…maybe someday when I have some kids! For now – my tradition is eating all day and watching football! PS – my leaf would say “health” & “family”
This is such a great idea! My leaf would say “My Beautiful Children”, I am SO proud of the young adults they have become!
Thanks for sharing!
What a wonderful tradition! I would be thankful for family and health.
Awwww this Lily is a cutie pie!
VERY sweet!
This is a great idea!
What a beautiful idea. I would cover your window myself with all that I am grateful for this year.
Thanks for sharing this!
Awwwe, what a cutie and a beautiful idea!!
I would of course have to say I’m thankful for family and friends. But this year I’m especially thankful for my hubby’s business. In this trying time we are living in right now, his business has still been doing well and I have been able to stay at home since closing a shop with my mom over the summer.
Thanks for sharing!!!
~Tidymom
I love when you put photos of my biggest fan Lily up here! She’s so cute. I wish I could come and craft with her:-) What a great idea, I’ll have to do this.
I would take some close-up shots of the window and make a book of them. You could do a digital book or scrapbook them. That way they will last forever. That construction paper will fall apart unless you laminate them. Oh, that’s a good idea. You could laminate them all on one sheet and make a book that way.
P.S. Tell her my Great-Grandma Chunkie’s real name was Lily Maybell and I almost named my daughter Lily! I love that name. I didn’t because I thought Lily Locurto was kind of a tongue twister. Grandma Chunkie was a 1920’s flapper and a little blue (sometimes pink) haired spit fire! ha! Her tradition was to make me my own special chocolate pie on Thanksgiving. She made that along with lemon, banana and about 3 pumpkin pies! I miss those homemade pies. I’ll be putting her chocolate pie recipe online next week. Yum!
Aw, Lily is adorable. She reminds me of my middle daughter. I love this idea
Thanks for sharing it with us!
She is so sweet–and so creative! And your window looks awesome already. Are you going to take a picture of the finished product?
Great idea. It really is the true meaning of the holiday. I love all the leaves in the different colors and how they seem to be floating down from the trees. thanks for sharing and great job Lily.
That is so sweet! What a cutie pie! I wish I would’ve thought of this so we could’ve started sooner. I’m having a giveaway today…stop by!
awesome idea! i love that they try to guess one another’s!
What a precious daughter – and how sweet she is! great story.
Isn’t this a great tradition? I was attempting a garland but had no ribbon so we ended up taping them up on the wall
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Your daughter is too cute!!!
This is so sweet, I love it!
Your daughter is gorgeous
This is a wonderful idea! To save them you could start a Thankful box. Inside the box you could organize the leaves in envelopes by year, or by child. If you made the box really cute it could sit on a table in the family room as a decoration/conversation piece each fall.
Awwww, what a cute idea! I love that you’ve made a tradition about thanks and family. And so charming!
And, thank you so much for mentioning my frosting. I warn you, it’s really really really hard to stop eating it. Not just on cookies. On graham crackers. On ice cream (heated up). On beaters. On fingers…
~Angela
Lily, you are precious–and possibly channeling Matisse. Love the cutout leaves. I’d need a handful of leaves to fill out–I’m overflowing with thanks.
Lily is as cute as cute can be. She sounds like such a thoughtful child, too…
I would put all of the leaves in a dated envelope for safe keeping. That way, you can keep them from year to year, and do a project with them when you are retired and have lots of time to do such a thing!! That’s my excuse for all of my folders/envelops/boxes full of treasures!!
Linda
I agree with a couple other comments about taking digital photos of the leaves. We are creating a felt tree with leaves and I plan on taking photos and adding the pictures to our “Year In Review” photo album we give to all the grandparents.
Great idea!!! This would be great in my classroom, too. Tell your daughter thank you for the new tradition in my 7th grade classroom!!!
How sweet! What a great idea! Lily is such a doll – and how great that your son said family.
I love this idea! And I also love Lily’s name~ pretty girl!
This is such a great idea – you rock Lily! I would of course write ‘my family’ on my leaf (how original, I know) but it is true. They sure do make life worth living! Hope you are having a nice day. ~ Robyn
Hi Julia,
Your daughter is so cute, and what a wonderful tradition you have started!
What a lovely idea….and your Lily is adorable.
What a wonderful idea!KUDOS to you and Lily!
I would write on my leaf: I am very Thankful for all of my new Bloggie Friends!
~Tam
Hey There Julia ~
This idea is precious…and Lily is adorable! You are creating memories that will live inside your family forever…now that is something to be thankful for. Great idea and great post.
I am now off to thaw a turkey.
Smiles ~ Ramona
How sweet, that’s a great idea!
fun and great for young families!
That’s a great project that your family has started, Julia! It’s cute that you all sit around the table guessing each others’answer.
This Thanksgiving, I have to say that to have my Mom still around is the biggest blessing. She just had a double mastectomy the other day and is doing pretty well.
Julia, that is a GREAT idea. Shoot, Lily sounds like she needs her own blog. I may just have to steal this idea and give all the credit to Miss Lily!
Wonderful idea! I can’t wait until my son is old enough that I can incorporate this into our traditions!
Cute idea. We did something similar, but put our leafs in a treasure box.
What a wonderful new Thanksgiving tradition! So colorful and most of all–full of meaning! This is lovlier than a stained-glass window! My leaf would say that I’m grateful to God for my husband’s miraculous recovery from having a stroke! Patti
May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have never a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!
Thank you so much for including this anonymous blogger, I so appreciate you including me xox Kathy
Happy Thanksgiving
Your Lily is sooo cute! ****I am thankful that you decided to blog….you have such a nice little family !!!
What a neat idea!
Your little Lily is a cutie pie…love her name!
Awww so cute and what a great new tradition!
I love this … what a great concept and a wonderful way to engage with friends and family alike … lovely
LOVE this idea!
Julia, I absolutely love this idea – and your Lily is such a beautiful sweetie! Our Thanksgiving tradition is a little less moving. We…um…eat as much as we possibly can.
Lily’s always have the best ideas
If it’s ok with your Lily, I’m going to adapt this for my Lily and do it as a Christmas thing. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your lovely family.
I love this idea and my girls would LOVE it. Since Turkey day is almost here I think I will do an adaptation for Christmas. Maybe they could write down gifts they would like to give that don’t cost any money. Hmmm I might have to think about this a little bit – I don’t want to make it too deep for five year olds.
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! I love your blog, your family and the creative, loving mood you have set up.
Speaking as someone who keeps a daily gratitude journal, why stop giving thanks once November is over? Why not make it an ongoing family project, and maybe do a different theme every month?
I absolutely love this idea!
At dinner we always go around the table and talk about our favorite part of the day. I like to think it reinforces thankfulness and it gets us talking as a family.