Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings." Willliam Arthur WardBeing grateful…that is what Thanksgiving Day means for me.  Not so much pilgrims, turkey or football, but the opportunity to reflect on how blessed we are.A time to be truly grateful ~ 'thankful'.  Trying to instill this in our girls we have a Thanksgiving family tradition.  I want to share our tradition with you.

Our Thanksgiving tradition involves a few simple things: a box, some paper, pencils & a little time.  Time to really think about all the things big or small for which we are thankful.

This is how it works:

• We set the table for dinner early in the day;
• At each place is a note card & a pencil;
• Each of us writes what we are thankful for on the card;
• All the cards go in the box.

Between the entree & dessert we pass around the box, each person reading another's card.  Some are funny, some are heart warming, some make you think ~ but all make us more thankful than before.

We have been doing this since 2008. Each years "thankfuls" go in envelopes inside the box.  Reading over the past years notes has also become a bit of a tradition.  It is sweet to see the changing handwriting ( and spelling! ) of the girls and recall what was important to them & us each passing year.

Truth be told, until I was preparing for this post our Thankful Box was a decorated shoe box.  Definitely took the box up a few notches for this tour and glad I did. I even made two!  One for each of my girls when they have families of their own. Here are the before & after photos of our new thankful box.

I started with a an unfinished wooden box.  The details on the making of our thankful box can be a blog post on their own.  For now I will just mention that I used Miss Mustard Seed's milk paint & love the finish. If it seems you want to know more about the box, I can write a separate post for another day, as you need to get along and visit the other bloggers on the tour!

Below is the tour line up.  Visit each blog ~ I know you you will be thankful you did!** Kelly **

Linking up at Imparting Grace