Celebrating Thanksgiving in our own way

We take the opportunity to celebrate thanksgiving around the same time as Americans, although we do it for our own personal reasons. We find it a really useful exercise to take stock and think about how lucky we are and what we value, before the festive season takes hold with it's gluttony and abundance.
We've been doing this, in different ways, for about three years now and it makes a big difference, leading us into the run up to Christmas feeling thankful and with love and gratitude in our hearts - that may seem a bit sappy but it works for us!

Last year we made a branch tree and decorated it with harvest decorations and cardboard leaves with our "thankful messages" on them. This year we made a big, flat paper tree and added our leaves throughout the week.

We enjoy reading each other's thankful messages and I am always surprised to find them so revealing about what has made a difference in the preceding months, for example - last year I remember being particularly moved to read one of Cameron's leaves, where he wrote about how thankful he was that he had gotten his aspergers diagnosis and wasn't "going crazy". It's been such a tough year for us, in so many ways, and our thankful messages reflected how far we have come and also how much healing there is still left to do.

We usually mark the occasion with a special dinner but this year Cameron asked if he could make a roast dinner bento box!

He included roast chicken, stuffing, jyagatama (potato and vegetable cakes) and cranberry jelly. The picture doesn't really do it justice - it was a big hit!