Making A Thanksgiving Gratitude Tree

By bobbi
November 19, 2019
No Comments

Once fall rolls around, I start getting the itch to celebrate Christmas. Some people are adamant about keeping the holidays in their proper lanes, but I’m not. In our family when it’s someone’s birthday, we celebrate for weeks, if not the whole month. If we get that, I think Our Savior deserves even more celebration. When Halloween is over, I dedicate November 1st to All Saints Day and November 2nd to All Souls Day. Then on November 3rd, I’m ready to indulge in Christmas music and the 24/7 Hallmark Christmas movies. However, I force myself to resist decorating for Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving. As a compromise, we tried something new this year – making a Thanksgiving Gratitude Tree.

Last year, I finally made the switch that I swore I never would do – we got an artificial tree. I have been a die hard fresh tree fan, but I hated that it eventually got so dried out that we had to keep the lights off. I started to toy with the idea of an artificial tree, especially after watching all those Balsam Hill Tree commercials on the Hallmark channel. We waited until after Christmas when the trees went on clearance and found the perfect one to fit in our living room. (I was surprised at just how life like it was!) I have been eager to try it out, so I set it up with only white lights and turned it into our Gratitude Tree during November.

I searched Pinterest for a colored printable of pine cones and found some pretty ones from MorePrintableTreats.com. (They actually have a lot of great printables!) I printed them on white cardstock paper and cut them out. I used a silver Sharpie pen to write down things we were thankful for, punched a small hole at the top of the pine cone, and tied a bow with twine. I used a tree ornament hook to hang it on the tree. (You could also bend a paper clip if you don’t have hooks.)

Each day we add one more thing we are thankful for, which helps us to keep the focus on Thanksgiving and being grateful for our blessings, while still getting a preview of the Christmas spirit.

The one thing I do miss about an artificial tree, is the fresh smell of pine. To make up for it, I bought these Scentsicles Tree Ornament White Winter Fir Scented Stick that a friend recommended. I hung them in the tree and now our room smells lovely! (Although you may want to skip it if you have allergies.)

Plus, we buy a real evergreen wreath for our Advent wreath and pine greenery from Trader Joe’s to hang on the walls. This adds plenty of pine smell to our home. 🙂 Do you have special Thanksgiving or gratitude decorations?

Happy Thanksgiving!

PS – You can follow Revolution of Love on Bloglovin, Feedly or another news feed. If you are a social media fan like me, we can stay in touch through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, GoodReads, Letterboxd, or Spotify, 😉

PPS – Disclaimer: “Revolution of Love.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.”

Happy Thanksgiving and Announcing A Winner

By bobbi
November 26, 2014
1 Comment

It’s been a busy but fun week over here! We’ve spent the last few days at Disneyland and loved it (despite the crowds and moderate heat) but now we are with my family ready to spend Thanksgiving together. This is my absolute favorite time of year! The only two things that would make the holiday more perfect would be if my sister and her family were here (BTW, happy birthday, Elena!!!!) and if my brother-in-law Mick who is deployed in Afghanistan were back home. (We are praying for you, bro! We all miss you!)

Although I am on the road, I did choose a winner for the Advent Giveaway Package while at Disneyland. 😉 A big congrats to Nicole S from Florida! From one sunny state to another, your Advent package will be arriving soon!

I also had an extra copy of the Blessed Is She Advent Journal that I bought for someone but they already ordered one sooooo, I’m choosing a second winner to receive a copy of the Advent Journal and that goes to Heather H. Congrats to the winners and a big thank you to all who participated!

I hope you and your loved ones have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving!

Pinterest Party & Link-Up (vol 32): The Gratitude Tree

By bobbi
November 4, 2014
3 Comments

Welcome to the RoL Pinterest Party. Join me as we link up and share how we made, cooked, baked, crafted, planned, organized, followed or created one of the pins on our Pinterest boards OR share something original that others can pin onto their boards.

Not on Pinterest? No problem. Link-up your own creation to inspire us so we can pin in to our own boards. It can be a recipe, sewing project, Catholic craft, homeschool project, organizing/ homemaking tip, themed birthday party, whatever you’d like.

Don’t have a post ready? The link-up will be open for 10 days so there’s still time. Plus, feel free to link up a new post or an older post that hasn’t had much traffic lately. 🙂

PLEASE NOTE: Because we are entering the busy season of the holidays, I will be doing the Pinterest Party only once a month. It will be every first Tuesday of the month and the link up will be open for 30 days, so there is plenty of time to join the fun! 🙂

* * * * *

I’ve been cleaning up some older posts and I found this one from a couple years back. I thought it would be perfect to re-post since I just finished my 31 Days of Gratitude and Thanksgiving is this month. This is a great gratitude project that you can do with your own family.

It is our family tradition that the week of Thanksgiving we visit our family (and Disneyland) in So Cal. Eight out of our nine siblings still live in California, except for Elena who lives in Virginia. A couple years back Elena posted about The Thankful Tree project she made. When I read her post, I thought it would be a perfect Thanksgiving project for all the siblings/relatives meeting at my mom and dads for the holiday. .

It would be a way to share our gratitude with each other and since Elena inspired the idea, it kept her close despite the distance.

First we took a large piece of a paper roll, sketched out a tree and colored it.

We cut leaves out of construction paper and placed them in a basket with pens. We had each of the family members and guests write down what they were especially thankful for this year.

We had various answers – faith, family, and loved ones, our country, our servicemen and women, the ability reason and forgive, running buddies, as well as dirt and rocks to play with. (Pictured is my leaf along with Andrew’s and John-Paul’s.)

Lastly, we had everyone add their leaves to the tree. All in all, it was a fun and meaningful project! (Thanks, EL. )

What Thanksgiving traditions does you family have?

* * * * *

Now it’s your turn.

1. Choose your creation, share about it and snap a photo if you can.

2. In your post, link back the original blogger/idea, rather than your Pinterest pin. That way credit goes to the proper person. 🙂 (But feel free to add your Pinterest profile link so we can follow you!)

3. Add a link back here so others can play along.

4. If you want to use it, here is the html code for the logo:

5. Link up below. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address.

The link up will be active the whole month. Have fun!

PS – You can follow RoL on Bloglovin, Feedly or another news feed. If you are a social media fan like me, we can stay in touch through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, GoodReads, Letterboxd or Instagram. 😉

PPS – This post may contain affiliate links.

An InLinkz Link-up

31 Days of Gratitude (Day 17): Decorating Our Home for Fall

By bobbi
October 17, 2014
5 Comments

The 31 Days of Writing Challenge continues. It’s Day 17 of my 31 Days of Gratitude.

* * *

After a long, hard week the kids are off school today and I have no appointments, meeting or errands so I get to stay in the house the whole day! I am sooo grateful for that because I need a day off.

Besides catching up on housework, I promised the kids they could help me decorate for Halloween/Autumn. We dug out the decor boxes in the shed and made the home look fall festive. After reading about Bonnie’s Autumn in the Home blog hop and reading Amanda’s A Glimpse into our Home: Fall Edition, I was inspired to get my butt in gear and not do what I usually do every year – wait so long to decorate that I give up trying since the season is over. I’m also linking up with The Fisk Files for her Fall Decor Link-up. (Well if I can get this post done in time. There is literally less than an hour until the link-up closes. It depends on how many interruptions I have. ;-))

The front door of our house gets our scarecrow family, pumpkins and the wreath we bought when we first moved into our house nearly ten years ago!

The front door opens up to our entryway and living room. I was unsure about hanging the plastic leaves garland but the kids loved it, so it stayed.

We bought the Mickey Mouse jack-o-lantern years ago at Disneyland. (It is next to a family photo of us in Disneyland.) It went well with our favorite Peanut characters in costume.

This is the top of our entryway shoe shelf. Technically the turkey is Thanksgiving but I thought it was appropriate since October is my 31 days of gratitude. 😉

Our pumpkin guys near the front door.

This is about as “spooky” as the little guys can stand. (Even thought they watch watch scenes with Darth Maul with no problem.)

Our indoor scarecrow.

To the left of the entryway is our library/front room/my desk area. Above our bookshelves I added a few leaves to the decor what was already there.

Our cross and Charles Dickens collection with random leaves.

To the right of the front door is our little prayer table. It pretty much stays the same year round (except for Christmas).

In the family room, next to the dining table, we have a second prayer spot. We decorate this one according to the season.

We first put up the card with the boys names for Lent but it worked out so well we kept it up. The name on top is our prayer leader of the day. This helps minimize the brawls over who gets to say their intentions or lead prayer first. 😉

In the kitchen, I put away the blue and light colored bowls and bring out the bowls and plates with reds and golds.

I got these cute little Fall plates for the kids.

These are small touches but it really made a difference and added a coziness to the house. All we need is the smell of pumpkin donuts in the kitchen and we will be set! I’m grateful for the free day that allowed me to spend time with the kids in our home. After the last few days of stress and busyness, it was a balm to my soul. For that, I am especially grateful.