This scene is easy to picture because it includes a tradition that has happened in almost every home on almost every Thanksgiving.
Everyone is gathered around the table, plates full of turkey and too many sides to fit on the plate. Topics of conversation may vary but there is always one thing that is discussed. “What are you thankful for?”
You go around the table as each one takes a turn saying something they are thankful for. If you are at my house one of my boys always has to announce that he is grateful for toilets or toilet paper. They should also be grateful they are sitting far enough from me that I can’t reach over and flick the back of their head.
Some comments are sincere, but once someone decides to be a jokester all the comments quickly go down hill as the kids compete to see who can come up with the most ridiculous thing to be thankful for.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a good laugh but I also really want my kids to realize how much they have to be grateful for. I would love at least one moment of warm fuzzy feelings. Is that too much to ask?
This year I have decided to do something completely different once we are all sitting at the table. I think it will go well because it is similar to another family tradition that my kids love.
Let’s start a tradition that helps to truly SHOW thanks rather than just speak it.
I believe one of the best ways we can show thanks is to use the gifts we’ve been given for good. But there is a problem. Most children, and adults for that matter, are either too afraid to use their God given gifts or they don’t even know what their gifts are.
I have to digress a moment and tell you a little story to help make my point. This took place fifteen Christmases ago. I know, you are already confused because you thought we were talking about Thanksgiving. It will all come together, I promise.
My 3 year old daughter only wanted one thing for Christmas. She wanted a Cinderella dress. I found a beautiful Disney dress up box filled with 3 princess dresses, crowns, and shoes. I figured she would be all the more delighted to receive exactly what she asked for and more. I imagined how she would react when she opened her gift and I couldn’t wait for Christmas morning.
The anticipated morning arrived and she eagerly opened her gift. She giggled and cheered when she found her Cinderella dress. I tried to show her how she had 2 other dresses but she didn’t seem to care. She quickly gathered everything and went up to her room without opening the rest of her gifts. I thought she was putting her dress on but she quickly came back into the room still in her Pjs. I told her she could put on her dress if she wanted.
She replied, “No, I am going to be Cinderella for Halloween!!!”
I explained that Halloween was 10 months away and she could still have fun with her dress now; or maybe wear one of the other dresses. Nope, she didn’t want the other dresses and her mind was set about the Cinderella dress. She had neatly folded her dresses in the bottom drawer of her dresser and closed the drawer determined not to open it until Halloween was here.
That was not the outcome I had expected. I tried to change my daughter’s mind many times but she wouldn’t budge. I was so sad that she wasn’t experiencing the joy she could have. I wanted to see her enjoy the gift I had given her but she had tucked it away.
A new twist on an old tradition.
Like my daughter did with her Cinderella dress; how often do we take a gift we’ve been given and tuck it away never to be used or enjoyed?
Instead of listing off things we are thankful for why not encourage gratitude by helping others see and share the gifts they’ve been given? Not the kind of gifts I gave my daughter but the kind of gifts our loving Heavenly Father has given each of His children.
How sad the Savior must feel when put away or refuse to recognize a gift He gave us. How many blessings we and others are missing out on when we don’t use the gifts we are given.
This quote I heard recently has had me thinking even more about the importance of acknowledging gifts.
“You have special spiritual gifts and propensities. I urge you, with all the hope of my heart, to pray to understand your spiritual gifts—to cultivate, use, and expand them, even more than you ever have. You will change the world as you do so.”
-Pres. Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I love the last line of that quote. We can change the world with our spiritual gifts and, oh my, does the world ever need changing!!
Here is what you can do when you sit down to eat Thanksgiving dinner:
- Start with an adult so kids have an example to follow. They must pick someone at the table to talk about. They get to share what gifts they see in that person; what they like about them. They can also give an example of how they were blessed by that person’s gift. If other’s want to add their thoughts that is great as well!
- The person who is glowing now because of all the uplift they’ve received gets to pick one person to talk about. The only rule is that they have to choose someone who hasn’t already been talked about. The chain goes on until each person has been told what their unique gifts are. The last person talks about the person who started.
- End by encouraging everyone to use their gifts for good and explain how it is the best way to show true thanks-giving.
I’m confident you will love what this does for your family. We do something similar often and everyone loves it. It is so fun to see how your children’s faces light up when they hear all the wonderful things others see in them.
As Thanksgiving leads right into Christmas what better gift can we give back to our Savior and Heavenly Father than to do what Pres. Nelson asked and “pray to understand your spiritual gifts—to cultivate, use, and expand them, even more than you ever have.”
We have so much to be grateful for and so much to give!!!
“And again, I exhort you, my brethren, that ye deny not the gifts of God, for they are many; and they come from the same God. And there are different ways that these gifts are administered; but it is the same God who worketh all in all; and they are given by the manifestations of the Spirit of God unto men, to profit them.”
“And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that every good gift cometh of Christ.”
-Moroni 10:8, 18 The Book of Mormon
