Reframe and Reshape Your Mindset To Find Gratitude This Season.
Let’s Be Grateful
grate·ful /ˈgrātfəl/
Adjective: Feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness; thankful.
Synonyms: thankful – appreciative – beholden
Thanksgiving — gathering with family, a turkey feast, pie, football maybe?
Our family loves an afternoon walk, a few board games, and did I mention pie?
Let’s face it. This holiday is a great way to connect with our loved ones, but it can be exhausting.
I think of my Polish immigrant family, who lived in neighborhoods of Italians, Poles, Germans, and Jews. It was the melting pot of the early 1900’s where families came from a wide range of backgrounds and identities!
It made me think of the goodness of God and His amazing creativity and design for His people.
This time of year we express gratitude for both the small and more global things in our life.
Kids are thankful for their house, their parents, or the new puppy.
Adults are glad to have good weather, a pay raise, or new neighbors.
But let’s face it, in all the busyness and preparation of this day, we often get sidetracked from the true purpose of the season
There’s planning, and meal prep, and travel, oh my!
But let’s hold on! There is a way to keep the grumbling at bay and put a spin on gratitude.
There’s a way to be grateful for the mundane tasks of life. You know, the ones you’re tempted to get grumpy about two hours before the guests arrive. 😉 Or is it just me?
It only takes a bit of thought and creativity to reframe our mind!
Here are a few ideas to shake up your celebration this year!
How To Really Give Thanks This Thanksgiving!
In spite of all this day involves: traveling, packing, shopping, cleaning, cooking — we can:
- Be grateful for our ability to celebrate with “gratitude” and gather with family and friends. For living in a country where we can freely call this a day of Thanksgiving to God. A day to worship, give thanks, and love our neighbor well.
- Be grateful for the internet and video chats. Especially for families who live far away or have elderly parents. How wonderful that modern technology gives us the ability to visit with loved ones through apps like Marco Polo, Facetime, and Zoom. For loved ones, video chats are a lifeline!
- Be thankful for the exhausting grocery trips to gather everything you need for the Thanksgiving meal. And now, with grocery pickups, we have it much easier. Hey, we can even order our groceries while we’re watching a Hallmark! Yay for Walmart pickups!
When you’re tempted to complain, think back to a few generations ago. You’d have spent the last five months feeding, cleaning, and bringing water to your turkeys. Then you’d have the fun job of slaughtering and plucking them! (Ask me how I know these details!) Don’t forget weeding the vegetable garden (all summer long) and digging up those sweet potatoes! (Makes me realize I still have sweets in the ground!) Sounds oh, so quaint! 🤔
- Be grateful for your busy husband — even when he may be too busy to help prepare for the feast and visitors. Not sure about you, but when my kids were little, I’d get resentful as my guy would doze off or get sidetracked while I handled the holiday prep. It’s important to remember how hard our guy works to provide for our family.
- Be thankful for your home, and even the mess that comes with holidays. All the cleaning and organizing for guests. All the decor to store and organize. Take time to remember the less fortunate families with no home to clean or belongings to organize. Hmmm, maybe the boxes of decorations and tissue paper on the floor as I type this — aren’t so bad after all!
- Be thankful for your cars and the gas to run them — even though the kids have asked “when will we get there” ten times already. It wasn’t that long ago that we would be traveling by horse and carriage — the wind creeping through the tarps on the windows, the jolting of wooden wheels on rock-strewn roads. Hmmm….suddenly our trip sounds a bit more appealing!
- Be grateful for your noisy, mess-making children. They’re probably tired from all the work or from trying to be patient while you do your work. I know, they get in your way when you’re trying to make meal plans, write the grocery list, and dust and vacuum and cook.
But here’s a quick reminder — it won’t be long before your home will be empty and your children will have their own children … making noise and messes. 🤫
But wait, there’s more! Our children’s children will make messes and noise again in our homes when they….um, let me guess…..when they visit us for Thanksgiving!
So there you go! So many reasons and such blessings abound if we take time to think, to get creative, to look long enough and close enough to see them.
Family, friends, food, fun — all gifts from the Father.
We do have so much for which to be grateful!
“And from them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of those who make merry……” Jeremiah 30:19