Thankful Trees, Thanksgiving Books & Hope

When eating fruit, think of the person who planted the tree.--Vietnamese Proverb.

I have a lot of tree-planters to thank for the fruit I have eaten this year: my husband for being the best hubs ever, my parents for a lifetime of love, my friends for inspiring me, BlogHer and NetSquared for helping me make a living doing something I love (blogging!), and Have Fun * Do Good readers for their notes and comments that keep me going. I'm looking for a way to celebrate all of the gifts I have been given this year.

Last year Michelle Malkin wrote about a Thankful Tree her daughter made in school. Each child cut out a tracing of their hand, wrote what he or she was thankful for on it, and pasted it on the tree. Jana of Once Upon a Family Blog, suggests cutting out leaves from colored paper for each of your Thanksgiving dinner guests, asking them to write down something they are thankful for, and placing the leaves in a bowl, or on a tree at the table. Afterwards she puts them in a Thanksgiving Book along with photos, sort of like a Christmas Memories Book.

Another way to celebrate the holiday season is to create a thankfulness journal, and write down one thing every day that you are thankful for, like Aimee of the My Happiness Project blog has done.

For some people, Thanksgiving can be a painful reminder of challenges within their family, or more globally, the oppression of people of color by white people. Feeling loving and thankful can be a real challenge, but as Jacqueline Keeler, a member of the Dineh Nation and Yankton Dakota Sioux wrote in, "Thanksgiving: A Native American View,":

[I]f we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.

And the healing can begin.

Photo credit: Eden Hall Tree by Surplusparts.

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