Thanksgiving Celebrations for the Home
by MaryJane Pierce Norton

As a family, make a blessing box. Ask different family members to write on slips of paper things for which they are thankful. Use the box as a centerpiece on Thanksgiving day. Pass around the box, pull out the slips of paper and read the blessings.

Plan for some time during the holiday to be a time of rest. Set aside a minimum of one hour for your family to take a walk together or to sit together and listen to soothing music or to sit in silence for a while then talk together.

Reflect on the past year. Ask family members to share one thing that happened to them during the past year for which they are thankful.

Take a family photograph. Label it "Thanksgiving 2009" and list on the back the names of family members and one thing each person is thankful for this year.

Pray for those who have lost family members during the last year. Light a candle of remembrance and call out the names of those in the family who are no longer physically present.

Use the following as a litany of thanks prior to your Thanksgiving Meal:

Reader: Today is Thanksgiving Day. We are grateful to be together at this time of the year.

Reader: Hear these words from the Bible:
"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters." (Psalm 24:1-2, NIV)

Reader: As we light the candles on this table,
let them be a reminder to us of God's presence with us.

Reader: Let us pray,
"O God for all the blessings we enjoy, we give you thanks.
Help us look at the world around us in such a way that we see your hand in creation and in those we meet.
Help us be a blessing today to those gathered around this table and in all our days to those we meet at home, at school, in church, and in our community.
Amen.

MaryJane Pierce Norton is the Associate General Secretary for the Discipleship Ministries Division, General Board of Discipleship


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