I wanted to share a fun Thanksgiving tradition that we have in our family and also wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. I’m just returning from the grocery store and all of the madness reminds me of what we go through to be with our family and to celebrate the holidays together and how fun it is to cook, share, and break bread together as we gather with our loved ones.
I love this tradition because I think it makes the holiday meaningful and what it’s really all about. I was talking to my Mom today and she made me giggle because she reminded me of how big this tradition has gotten in our family.
What we do is during our Thanksgiving dinner we go around and we say what we are grateful for and everybody has an opportunity to do that.
It’s really amazing because you’re not going to have that conversation necessarily with every single person that’s at your table. You may not know that they overcame something really big that year and they are grateful for that. Or had some sort of a health challenge or maybe you do but to hear them speak about what they are grateful for…their children. their grandchildren, their loved ones, their wins at work, whatever it might be that they are really grateful for that particular year (because we do it so often people really get into it) it really bonds us all together as a family.
What’s gotten funny about it is we end up going on and on about all the things that we are grateful for and the food gets cold which drives my Mom nuts because of course she made this beautiful meal. So she was sharing with me that she is going to be moving that to the serving of the dessert time.
I end all my Accountability Works calls with gratitude because sometimes we do some hard work, sometimes we get some tough feedback. Sometimes we share something and other times we are all business. What makes it really personal and intimate is that we share our gratitude at the end. We may not know that its your husband’s birthday or that you were really grateful that you got to spend some time with your best friend. When you share that about yourself and you share something intimate it brings us together us a group.
So on this day when you are gathering with your friends or your family take a moment to share what you are grateful for. I think we assume that everybody knows and we don’t often put a voice to it. I encourage you to share and put it out there because it will bring you all closer and that is what this day is all about.
Happy Thanksgiving from the bottom of my heart. I am super grateful for you being a part of the community of people that support and participate in doing this kind of work. I really am so grateful.
Loved your post, Ali. Being grateful is a game changer for sure. Your tradition sounds super fun!
Awesome post. Loved reading it and will be sure we do gratitude with my family tonight… over dessert.
Thank you, Gina. We did it over dessert too and it was awesome, downfall is by then we all had a lot of wine!