Our Fabled Nest

If we stop and take a moment between the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we can really see all of the beautiful blessings we already have!

We, as humans, know that life is busy, busy, busy. All. The. Time. It’s hard to connect to our inner selves. It’s hard to connect with nature. It’s even hard to connect with our loved ones and friends. While technology has value in the same sense, I feel as though it has minimized human connectedness. Technology creates distance even if you are in the same room or seated next to one another. I’ll get off my soap box in a sec – promise! I’ve seen it one too many times when we dine out that no one is having conversations… just on their phones until the meal comes and then they take photos and right back to whatever had their attention. Another issue is worry of what’s next. We live in such a hyper fixated world that there is no down time. Some feel guilty if they’re not busy and just rushing to the next thing. I know, I have been there.

So, all that to say: let’s breathe during November. Between the hurriedness of the season but before the hysteria of the holidays. Let’s start off the holiday season with a mindset change. A mindset of what do I have in this present month that I am overjoyed about or what blessings are right in front of me? This is my favorite way to kick off the holidays! A grateful countdown!

We have done a grateful tree in years past and it was a beautiful reminder of all of those little moments truly do add up. This little tree was crafted from branches or sticks we gathered from the woods behind our house. We would then place them in a jar and hang the little gratitude’s each day. If using sticks make sure they have lots of little branches so you have plenty of room to hang all of your leaves! I then cut autumn shaped leaves in shades of red, yellow brown and orange. To hang the little grateful leaves, we would simply use paper clips to attach individual leaves and hang from the branches. It was so beautiful watching this little tree “bloom” with leaves of gratefulness! We would wait until dinner each evening to write our little blessing and have a moment of how impactful that blessing really is.

This year, we are utilizing our canvas countdown! It’s a simple beige canvas with black numbers. Rather plain but I love that I can swap out different decor for it to be a part of basically any holiday we are celebrating. For the grateful countdown, I have a very minimalistic “Give Thanks” banner at the top for decor since it’s about the grateful things in our lives. Plus, I am happy to have our home back to a semi normal decorated state from the Halloween festivities and hubs birthday…. a nice minimal November is much needed!

A new to us idea this year is grateful questions…. it’s more impactful because we are focusing on a solid question rather than mulling over which blessing to write down. We are sticking with our tradition of discussing over dinner. I don’t think it’s necessary to write anything, but a lovely conversation will do nicely. We will pick the question in the morning and have all day to figure out how the question applies to what area of life that we have a blessing in. Some questions, I think we can be “selfish” in our answers and there is never a wrong answer… One question I am thinking of would be “What modern convenience are you most grateful for?” For me, that is a very selfish long hot shower because that recharges me and helps me to start my day on the right foot. Hubs on the other hand, I could see him saying Facetime since he doesn’t see family often so that’s his way of connecting with them. Similar to our October countdown, I will be writing the questions on individual chalk tags. Each tag gets a slot on the Grateful Count Down, but a few will overlap since it’s only a 24-day countdown. No biggie and it works beautifully! Here’s a small list of questions to get you and your family started!

Some of the questions this year:

1. What is one thing that made you smile this morning?
2. What personal value makes you a better person?
3. What’s one thing that happened in October that makes this month so special?
4. What are you thankful about this season of life?
5. What in nature do you enjoy the most?
6. What’s a luxury you’re thankful for?
7. What’s the happiest memory of your childhood in November?
8. Who’s a teacher that inspired you?
9. Who is someone in your life that you are grateful for?
10. Your best advice you’ve received this year?
11. Who has helped you become the person you are today, and what’s the one thing you’d thank them for?
12. What about today has been better than yesterday?
13. What modern convenience are you most grateful for?
14. What movie are you grateful for?
15. Name one thing today that made you smile.

Cheers to our next adventure!