Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Although it’s not a holiday or a cultural thing that we observe, it is still a widely known holiday all around the world. Our children are so highly exposed to Western content these days, they would also have heard of Thanksgiving from shows they watch or games they play.
So let’s teach them a little about this Thanksgiving holiday that’s observed in some parts of the world; the how and why it came about.
Once they have learned this story, we can go one step further to encourage them to keep up with giving thanks everyday. I believe it’s a good thing to cultivate the attitude of gratitude in a person, and it’s easy to start from young.
We can do this by getting our child to write a gratitude journal to record what he or she feels thankful for. Whether it’s written or drawn, it’s a good exercise to get our child to sit down for a moment of reflection and put it down in words or pictures.
Let’s start by introducing to them what Thanksgiving is about, in a nutshell, followed by getting them to start their daily gratitude journal.
What is Thanksgiving Day?
As the name suggests, it is a day to give thanks to the Creator. In the US, it is a national holiday that’s observed on the fourth Thursday of November every year. On this day, family and friends gather and share a Thanksgiving dinner.
The menu usually consists of a whole turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Of course, it can be anything we want to serve, but these few dishes seem to have been set as the staple food for Thanksgiving dinner. If you’re thinking of dishing up a lovely Thanksgiving meal, check out some of these dishes you could make.
How Did Thanksgiving Day Come About?
The first Thanksgiving is said to be in the year 1621, where a group of settlers and Native Americans in Plymouth gathered and shared an autumn harvest feast. This dinner was held to celebrate the bountiful harvest that they had for that year.
Since then, many such celebrations were held on different dates by different groups of people, but usually around the month of November.
It was only in the year 1863 that the then President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, made it an official national holiday to be celebrated on a particular date for all of America.
Prior to this event, a writer by the name of Sarah Josepha Hale, (who wrote the song Mary Had A Little Lamb) was campaigning since 1827 for Thanksgiving to be a national holiday. When it was finally gazetted as a holiday, she was nicknamed “The Mother Of Thanksgiving”.
Giving Thanks Everyday
Now that our little one understands what this simple holiday is about, we can go on to encourage them to adopt an attitude of giving thanks every single day. I think it’s more meaningful in developing their character this way rather than to acknowledge and be thankful on that one specific day a year.
Introduce to them the activity of daily journalling. Instead of only writing the happenings and thoughts of the day, we also get them to write down a few things they feel thankful for.
Each day they should find something different to be grateful for, and to record that down in their journal or notebook. Encourage them to be creative. They can write or draw or even paint in their journals.
Things We Can All Be Grateful For
The things that they feel grateful for don’t have to be huge things in life. For example, they could be thankful for the perfect weather. Because of it, they enjoyed their cycling time at the park. Had it been a rainy time, they wouldn’t have been able to do so.
Another example could be being grateful for having a play date. Or feeling grateful for having a sibling to play with.
Let it be the small and ordinary that our child feels thankful for. After all, the small things in life matter. Sometimes they could mean more than the bigger things in life. Teach them how to appreciate the small things, and the rest of it will fall into place nicely.
Spreading Thanks And Cheer All Around
Given how this year has turned out, we could all use more cheer to brighten the gloom spreading all around. We can only spread cheer around us when we are happy to begin with. Studies have shown that being grateful can make us happier.
So if we want our child to be happy, start with us showing them the right affections and then cultivate gratitude in his or her heart. This combo will build up their happiness from within rather than from external and temporary factors. This simple attribute of thanksgiving packs a bountiful of goodness to our well-being.
Maybe you too can start your own gratitude journal, and journey along with your child.