Can You Capture Thankfulness in a Jar?

(Photo courtesy of Hub Pages)

To most it would look like an old Pringles jar wrapped in pretty wrapping paper...and they would be right, but to me and my family it's much more. This is our Thanksgiving Thankfulness Jar. It began a long time ago, and each year on Thanksgiving it's pulled out again and set in a place of prominence. Throughout the day guests write what they are most thankful for on small strips of paper. At the end of dinner we pass the jar around and take turns pulling the strips of thankfulness out and reading them aloud. Each year we add to the jar, so mixed in with our current thanks you'll find the things we were thankful for over the last 10 years. It becomes a beautiful time of remembering, gratitude and recognition of the many blessings in our lives.

Put Your Blessings Into Writing

Each of us is blessed in incredible ways, but often the things we should be thankful for go unnoticed in the busyness of life. Many years ago I started a thankfulness journal as a way to remember all that I have to be thankful for. At the end of the day I'll sit down and write out five things I have to be thankful from that day. Some days I have to think quite hard and may come up with something as silly as "My coffee tasted extra delicious this morning". Other days I have to pick the best of the best for my top five. Every now and then I'll flip through my pages of blessings. You can't help but feel overwhelmed with all of the blessings that have been poured on you.