Scrooge, Thanksgiving and a pile of Post-Its!

It's like a scene straight out of Scrooge!  Hunched over my stacks of receipts and bills, I examine each one; my face squished in a grimace and my eyes narrow in intense concentration.  I punch the numbers in my over sized, blue calculator and watch with increasing anxiety the slowly dwindling total. Sighs, moans and growls escape my tightly pursed lips.  I can feel my heart start to pound and my stomach tighten.  My hands begin to shake as I copy the ever shrinking total in my checkbook ledger.  This is usually the time my kids choose to come hippity hopping in the kitchen to see what Mom is up to.  They quickly turn to scamper at the sight of their Ebenezer Mom's head buried in her hands and the low, muffled response to their cheerful greeting, "Just gimme a minute, I gotta figure this out!"





I don't know what it is about me and bill paying.  It's kind of like being back in school and having homework...homework that never gets done.  Every month the bills get out....every month they come back.  I've been late on a couple of them before and to me, late notices are like a big, fat "F" on my report card.  I picture in my mind the bill sender as a cross old teacher with one fist clenched on her hip and the other hand with a wagging finger shaking back and forth crossly in front of my nose.   Month after month this goes on.  The shaky hands, the stomach aches........the Scrooge attitude.  Every month.....that is....until this month.






Post-it Notes and their lack of glue has shed a new light on Thanksgiving for this Bah-humbug, bill paying gal.  The 22...and counting.... colored sheets of square, barely glued paper hanging on my fridge has done the job of Jacob Marley and all three Spirits of Christmas to make this bill paying Scrooge a believer.  A believer in what?  A believer in God's daily provision!  Our family's "November's 30 Days of Thanks" started with a movement to take back Thanksgiving and give thanks where it's due....our Lord and Savior.  Bending over every morning to re-stick the previous days thanks, forced me to look at all 132 of our thanks.....and counting..... multiple times a day.  Today, however, I felt defeated by the steady flow of silent, drifting notes and I gathered them up in a pile and placed them next to the fridge.  Random holes of exposed refrigerator were tall tale signs where thank yous to Jesus were once stuck.  One of the kids noticed the gaping holes and the pile of fallen notes and asked what happened.  I told him we needed sticky tack to give the Post-It's extra sticking power.  A few teeny pieces of sticky tack to the back of the renegade notes and they were finally stuck in place!

                                               
                                                                               



My bill paying attitude.....the lack of faith of my Lord's providing for me and our family.....was like Scrooges gnarly fingers flicking each Post-It note of thanks down.  With every grumble, growl and moan I was removing a thanks from the fridge.  It was like I was telling Jesus, "Yeah, thanks for the groceries last month but.... I know THAT won't happen again!" Being thankful should encompass not only the past provisions, but my provisions of the present and future.   Like the sticky tack on our post-it's, Jesus' words in Luke 12:22-30 works like superglue and holds our thank you notes up permanently for my doubting eyes to see.  Jesus lovingly tells us that He WILL provide!   He has blessed us with so much, yet, how easily I forget.  For 21 years, He has faithfully paid every bill, provided a roof over our heads and food for our table.  For the next 21 years.....and beyond.....He promises to provide for those same needs.  ".....Oh ye of little faith.....seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind........your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.  Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."  If my Master says He will take care of me.....His promises are true!

Day 24.....Thanksgiving Day.....November's 30 Days of Thanks.  I'm thankful for second, third and infinity chances for bill paying Scrooges like myself with little faith......and sticky tack comes in handy, too!

Thirty Days of Thanks

I couldn't believe my ears!  Scanning through radio channels on my way to the boys' orthodontist appointments in Ann Arbor, Bruce Springsteen's recognizable, gravelly voice broke through the static.  "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" worked like a smelling sauce and my abnormally still boys were snapped from their reading trance!  Anakin and the rest of the Star Wars crew were left to fend for themselves and my once quiet library on wheels was now full of loud, off key singing. As the boys and The Boss shouted of the arrival of St. Nick, I looked around my van in dumbfounded shock, recalling how just that morning I had emptied it from its Halloween clutter of discarded costumes pieces and candy wrappers.  Christmas, I found out later that day, was not just blaring on the radio, but like a freight train eager to leave the station, it was making its way full speed at places like the Mall, Walmart and even T.V. commercials!  Grinning Jack-O-Lanterns, scary skeleton masks and aisles of Halloween candy were now being upstaged by Santa and Snowmen.  Standing in front of the huge Christmas tree looming just inside the entrance of Walmart, sounding like an old Wendy's commercial, I picked my jaw off the ground and found myself asking, "Where's the Turkey?!" 

It really shouldn't be that much of a shock.  Thanksgiving, a holiday with Christian origins, has had it's long, turkey neck on the the chopping block for a long time and the world seems to be working over time trying to silence its gobble.  Thanksgiving is just a reminder of when our country was young and Christ was in the center.  Amnesia is the worlds goal, and a good dose of egg nog in the veins of our children as soon as the month of November hits, is their solution.  How do we as Christians fight back and take back this historical, Christ-centered holiday?  Simple, leave a legacy of tradition even stronger than Rudolf and his red nose.

Tradition:  "An inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought or action."  I'm a big one for establishing tradition! Any chance I get, I try to tack a new one on and like clockwork I make sure they happen....why?  Tradition = family unity!  Traditions don't have to be fancy.  A few of our weekly examples are popcorn on Sunday nights, Saturday Morning Muffins and Friday Night Pizza/Movie Night.  Traditions can come in all different shapes and sizes and none is too small to be included!

We as parents can breathe new life into Thanksgiving for our children by expanding their view of this popular "all-you-can-eat " feast day by adding a few new traditions on.  What traditions can you start?  One we have used over the years is "Thanks-living" treasures by Family Life Today.  We get out our treasure chest shaped box a week before Thanksgiving and read the pilgrim story and the devotionals each day right up to Thanksgiving.  Recipes (hard tack is the kids' favorite!), pictures, and little trinkets are all used together to help teach the kids the Christian origins behind the holiday. 

After my Ann Arbor trip radio shock moment, I decided it was time we add another Thanksgiving tradition to our arsenal and shine an even brighter spotlight on the holiday.  Emphasising the "Thanks" in Thanksgiving weighed heavy on my heart and the phrase, "Novembers 30 Days of Thanks" popped into my head.  That's it!  We're going to retake Thanksgiving in 30 days! From the time the kids could write, we found it important to teach the kids thankfulness and gratitude by writing their own thank you notes. Verbal thanks is great and we encourage that, too, but there's something about going the extra mile and writing a hand written note that really cements the feeling of gratitude. Friends and family have received notes of thanks......but our God hasn't.  Kelsey came up with a post-it thank you note idea for the fridge with each family member writing their thanks on the post-it note of the day. Every day, the collage of thanks will be added to until the end of November, when the word "Thanksgiving" will be evident for all to see.   Our 30 days of hand written "Thanks" will create a colorful masterpiece displaying God's merciful and gracious "giving"!  November 30th, will be a day of rejoicing with a fridge full of rainbow post-its notes of promises fulfilled! 

So, how about you?  Are you up for the challenge?  Let's take back Thanksgiving.....in 30 days!