Almost guilty...

Right after the super duper scary Halloween decorations that completely make our little ones come unhinged at the store gets taken down...it is then time for us to make small talk about how the commercial push of Christmas is driving out Thanksgiving. We complain about not enough time to enjoy the fall colors before we are overwrought with the "Red and Green" and we are blinded by LED Snowman glowing like it is radio active when we walk in the door to the store. I mean Eggnog Lattes can never come soon enough...but can all the Christmas stuff hold off a little bit....Well, that is what "we" say when making small talk anyways.

However, my sister and I have little count down to Christmas timers that go off in our chests simultaneously in October...We are hit with the sudden need to get organized for the holidays. It is time to nail down plans, exchange names, get the wish lists written and dispersed, plan what crafts we will make, meal plan for any holiday meals that might take place...I like to prayerfully decide with my husband what holiday activities we want to make happen so that we don't get too busy in December. In fact, I like to have all presents wrapped and accounted for, and Christmas cards done by Thanksgiving. Time is ticking!!!

Every Thursday we try to do a fun family activity. Sometimes we play games, or go out for Burger King, or do a craft or seasonal activity. As I was thinking through our Family Fun Nights for November I was thinking we could use that time to make Christmas presents. We really like to pick crafts that we can do as a family to share. My motivation for getting all the gifts and stuff ready in November is so that we can have a more focused Advent Season.

In our family we choose to celebrate Christ's Birth at Christmastime. (We have always known that Jesus probably wasn't really born in December, but for an extensive expose on why we choose to celebrate Jesus' coming at this time of year you can ask my husband the Pastor/Seminary Student.) We love the idea of taking a month to go through the lineage of Jesus and use Advent as a tool to learn about what lead up to Jesus' coming and talk all about who Jesus is.

So, my excuse for almost skipping over Thanksgiving related activities during Family Fun Night seemed like a good one...Jesus. However, on our first Family Fun Night in November we decorated for Thanksgiving. We have a few Pilgrim decorations and a Cornucopia. We had a great time putting them up and it lead to some great conversations about Thanksgiving and thankfulness. CJ was even inspired to write a cute short story about Thanksgiving.

This got me thinking....maybe we need a bit more time to devote to Thanksgiving...Maybe we should stop and Give Thanks to God as a family and that would be important too. So, we are going to make the most of our two Family Fun Nights before Thanksgiving! We are going to make a thankfulness tree on one night, and hopefully make some place mats. Well, that's the plan anyway!

I think we can take the time be thankful and still get all the Christmas gifts done, it may take some simplifying so that we make sure we keep our focus. But, what better way to start the season than with a thankful heart.