giving thanks

Michelle Duggar on Giving Thanks

FAMILY MATTERS on 11.22.13

Michelle Duggar19 Kids and CountingBIO

 

Question from a "19 Kids and Counting" fan on Facebook: How do the Duggars celebrate Thanksgiving?

We always have family and even extended friends over for the holiday. Before we have our mealtime, we’ll take time to go around the room and give each person an opportunity to say what they're thankful for. The whole purpose of giving thanks on Thanksgiving is remembering back to the first Thanksgiving and those people who were grateful just for making it through that winter. We give thanks for just being in America.

We like to give everyone, even the little guys, an opportunity to share what they're thankful for. Of course, the younger ones are always giving thanks for their pets and sometimes their favorite toys, things like that. It’s really cute because they share from their hearts the things that bring them joy for that day and at that specific time. As they get older they start to realize all the deeper things.  

It always seems to come back to relationships. We’re thankful for provisions -- food, clothing, and shelter -- but the most important thing is that we’re thankful for the relationships that God has given us.

Often as we are interacting with individuals we hear from people that didn’t have the kind of close relationships in their families that they hoped to have. And our children, as they grow, hear those stories and they see what they have and how important it is. I think it goes back to thanking God for those relationships.

When the children were young we would make grateful gobbler turkey drawings. The kids would each take a smiling turkey drawing and add the feathers. The feathers on his tail were five different colors and on each feather we had the child write what they were thankful for. So often those five little feathers had mommy, daddy, brothers, sisters, and then their favorite pet. The sweetest ones were made when they were small, with their letters drawn backwards -- they would do their best! I tried to do those with the younger kids each year so that they would have a reminder of what they were thankful for through the years.

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