Thankful Turkeys- Counting Your Blessings for Each Other
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It's Thanksgiving Time again! Hooray! You’ve heard of Thankful Trees but have you heard of Thankful Turkeys? These turkeys help you focus on the unique gifts each member in your family has. It’s such a great way to increase family unity and love.
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The best part is after Thanksgiving is over, your family will be full of gratitude for each other that it’s easy to feel the Christmas spirit! It’s also an awesome confidence booster as people realize others see specific good in them.
How to Make Your Own Thankful Turkey
It’s easy and fun! Start by cutting a brown piece of construction paper into a round shape- we do ovals. Then start customizing! It’s so much fun to see how people make their turkeys. Every year we do it different ways (sometimes we cut stuff out, sometimes we use googly eyes, etc.) but I always try to keep it simple enough so it's fun but quick. The easiest way to make a face is to draw the head with a brown crayon or marker on top of your brown paper then go from there.
Fun turkey customization ideas
Add a bow, necklace, and some earrings
Try a top hat, monocle, bow tie, and mustache
Go for the Picasso style
Turn it into a creeper turkey (Minecraft)
Give your turkey a costume
Keep it traditional
Make it frazzled
After your turkey is complete, put it in your giant thankful tree or somewhere else where you will see them often. We’ve noticed if they are not extremely visible, we’ll forget about them.
Add Thankful Feathers
Each day, either spotlight one person OR have each person do one feather for someone else. You can cut a bunch of feathers out of construction paper. Write on each feather the things you are grateful for about each other. We like to do our spotlight around the dinner table since everyone is already gathered together.
Tips for your Gratitude Feathers
Ask everyone, "What do you LOVE about ______?" Emphasize the word love so they start to think about what makes that person so great and special.
If they give a general answer like "They play with me" try to get them to dig deeper. What do they play with you? Why do you like when they play that with you? Maybe it’s the voice they use or the stories they think of. Help them identify the quality. In this case, what they are really saying is they are grateful they are creative. It really helps them start to identify characteristics.
Write each person’s name on the feather they said so the person will remember who said what. They definitely will ask later.
No repeats. If they are having a hard time thinking of something, try sharing a story about that person that maybe highlights a few qualities first. You can also further define that quality or think about what else that characteristic has lend to.
Make a list. Sometimes it’s easier to write down a whole bunch of things you like about somebody all at once. Then you can refer to your list throughout the month.
You can do this activity as long or as short as you want. I like to spread it out throughout the month so we focus on the good in each other longer and it allows for me to skip a day here or there without stressing about it. However, you can do just the week of Thanksgiving or a bunch of feathers all in one day. It’s completely flexible.
Need something simpler?
Print out my turkey page instead. Each person can decorate it then pass it around for others to fill in the feathers.
When Thanksgiving is over, hang your turkeys in each person’s room so they can remember what makes them so great or record it in your journals. It’s a great list of qualities that you can look back on when you are feeling bummed.
If you have extra feathers, put them in your Thanksgiving bin so you can easily do it again next year! Discover more fun for your holidays.
