HI ,
Growing up, my parents were the king and queen of family traditions. We had hamburgers for dinner every Saturday night (eating in the family room watching ABC’s Wide World of Sports – oh, the agony of defeat!). We celebrated Passover, Advent and did dozens of other things that commemorated cycles of time.
Now that I’m grown and gone, they aren’t deterred in the least. They still eat hamburgers every Saturday night. And when they can, they send me little reminders of the traditions that we used to celebrate.
Sitting on my desk is a little hand-made booklet entitled “Thanksgiving in November”. It’s spiral bound, and features clip art from eras gone by. It screams of my mother’s hand in putting it together.
The premise of Thanksgiving in November is to cause me to look around at the things in my life and be thankful. Each day of the month has an activity or item and the quantity has a price tag associated with it.
November 1: How many cups of Coffee or tea or water did I drink? 5 cents per cup.
November 2: Have I purchased any items of clothing in the last month? 5 cents per item.
November 3: How much time did I spend on my computer? 10 cents per 15 minutes? (Up to you if you count working or not!)
November 4: Did I sleep in? A dime for every half hour past 6 AM (ok, that was a lot more relevant when I was a kid!)
November 5: Have any members of my family visited this week? Five cents for each one.
The premise is that over the course of the month each of these “prices paid” accumulate little by little. And on Sunday December 4, you bring the total amount and give it as “an offering of thanks” at church.
As far as I can remember back, nickels and dimes have been the price. I think with time and inflation you could even up the denomination a lot and use much bigger numbers – as you are able.
I posted a picture of the little booklet and the complete listing of thankfulness activities by day on my website. Click here to see it for yourself: https://www.dennis-stevenson.c…
I hope your November is off to a great start! Let it be a month focused on thanks for all the blessings you have in your life.
Dennis
