A Sacrifice of Praise

Somewhere around mid-October, I ran several sheets of card stock through the Cricut and wound up with a few hundred leaves. While Joshua and I watched a movie one night, I punched holes in them and ran a short string through the end of each leaf so they would be hang-able. Then we dropped them into a pretty crystal dish along with a Sharpie and after we finished our meal each night, we would go around the table and ask each child to tell us something they were thankful for. I wrote each blessing on a leaf and after dinner, we'd each hang up our leaf. We call it the 'Thankful Tree' but we like saying the 'Thankful-leaves' which comes out sounding like 'Thankfullies'.

We continued on in this fashion until sometime in December. And then I just left the tree in the corner of the dining room because it was very charming with it's sweet leaves full of gifts.

I wrapped classy white duct tape around the stems of two
branches and a brick to get the super-twiggy effect I wanted.

I dropped the ugly white duct-taped brick into an ancient paint
can and tucked burlap around it all to make it look prettier.

A shot of the tree in 'bloom'.

Sometime in January, I decided it was time to take our tree down. I pondered what to do with it. I hated to throw it out, but I am trying to train myself to be more streamlined and a little less clingy for sentimental reasons.

But those leaves! Full of hope and praise!

Joshua suggested we break up the tree and use both it and the leaves in our next fire. The kids and I all loved the idea of offering up our Thankfullies to God.

The branches of our tree as tinder for our fire.

Our leaves scattered across.

...let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise... ~~ Hebrews 13:15