A Few Thoughts On Gratitude and Thanksgiving

 Expressing Gratitude

Good morning, friends, on this Monday before Thanksgiving. Today, I'm thinking about the concepts of gratitude and thanksgiving. Both are important, not only at this time of year, but throughout the year.

My words of the year for 2025 have been gratitude and grace, and I have to admit that I have become much more mindful of expressing gratitude in my own life. Whether expressing gratitude verbally, in my journaling or through a thank-you note, I have tried to recognize the many things in my life for which I am thankful. 

The words thankful and gratitude are often used interchangeably. And they are closely related. As I looked up the definitions of each, however, I found that while thankfulness can be momentary, as in "thank you for helping me make this meal," gratitude is more of a mindset. Gratitude is felt more deeply and includes an appreciation of one's life and the good things in life even though one's life circumstances may not always be great. That puts a whole new spin on the idea of gratitude, doesn't it? We all know that life isn't always wonderful. There can be so many things, different for each of us, that can cause us worry, pain and difficulty and, in these circumstances, it's hard to be thankful. But if our mindset is one of gratitude, we can realize that even when life is hard, there are still some things that are good. And it is often this goodness in life that pulls us through whatever the hard times may be. 

The apostle Paul seemed to know this when he wrote in I Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)

 "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."

I am still a student of learning to have an attitude of gratitude in all things. All too easily, I can quickly revert back to being grumpy and fault finding when things in life aren't going well. But I'm trying. And having the word "gratitude" as one of my words of the year has helped me to focus more on this important mindset.

How about you? Do you have an attitude of gratitude as we go into Thanksgiving and then Christmas? I hope that each of you dear readers will enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving week and I look forward to being back with you next week!

Until Next Time,

Debbie (this and that)

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

 Christmas Decor and A Little More

Our foyer table vignette

Hi everyone!  I'm sure that you are starting to see lots of Christmas posts popping up on your social media sites. So, allow me to share one more with you! I got started with Christmas decorating pretty early this year and I must say that I am really enjoying all of our decorations. Especially with the time change and the earlier dark evenings, it's so comforting to turn on all of the Christmas lights. Hope you enjoy these pictures of our Christmas decor.

I bought a new tabletop tree for the corner of our living room. This tree is a bit taller and slimmer than the previous one. It also has a remote that can change the color choices and add twinkle lights or fade in/out lights. I've been enjoying being able to change the light choices in the evenings. The tree skirt was created in needlepoint by my mother-in-law who used to do a lot of stitching. I didn't like the way it hung over the table though, so I have scrunched it more around the tree bottom. I didn't take a picture of the way it looks now.

Our mantle with three different scenes created around our rock collection. I like placing objects I love around what we already have on display. To me, it is interesting and meaningful to decorate like this. I've put everything we had on the mantle away in previous years in order to decorate for Christmas. I just don't do that anymore. 

Little Santas and cat figurines on one end of the mantle. 

Christmas bears on the other end of the mantle. You can also see the pet stockings. I use heavier rocks as my stocking holders. 

And the white glass nativity in the center. I removed the bear poster so you could see the nativity better in this picture. I kept getting a glare from the poster cover when I took a picture with it behind the nativity. 

I have some smaller nativities on display in the side window and I also ordered this full size Jim Shore nativity as a new piece this year. The colors are simply magnificent and the seller on Poshmark used such great care in packing and shipping it to me. I'm very pleased. If you have never heard of Jim Shore before, Google him and you will find many very colorful figurines for both Christmas and other times. 

On the side table of the living room I have a three foot tall Christmas tree covered in musical instruments.

Over the years, The Mr. and I have collected many musical instrument ornaments. I am really enjoying this musical instrument tree so much! For toppers on my trees, I used ribbons that I found at Hobby Lobby that color coordinate with the colors of ornaments on each tree.

On the guest bathroom shelf I placed these colorful pieces. The "Baby It's Cold Outside" sign is a new piece this year that will displayed throughout winter.

A couple of weeks ago my friend, Sharon, and I attended an ornament making class at our local library. The ornaments were made out of book pages. Sharon did great at making her ornaments. I'm sorry to say I struggled but I did finally get one to work out. I decided not to hang mine on my tree, however.

To make myself feel better, I came home and did some of my own crafting of ornaments and cards using scrapbook paper and stickers. I'm much more adept at this type of crafting! 

Some close-ups of the ornaments I created. 

And I haven't forgotten that we are still in the Fall Season. As a nod to Autumn and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I created this vignette on our round kitchen table. It makes me smile each time I see it. It's whimsical and playful and reminds me to be full of gratitude for all that God has blessed us with. 

I'll close with this silly pic that The Mr. took of me and my good friend Dolly! We were having a fun afternoon in Black Mountain, NC looking in the shops and having lunch. This cardboard figure of Dolly Parton was in the book area of the local hardware store there. The Mr. takes these photos because he says I need to use them on the blog. He calls it "feeding the beast." He's too funny!

I hope that you are finding fun and laughter in your November days, friends!  And I hope that you enjoyed this photo-heavy post today! Let me know how you are spending your November days in the comments section. I love hearing from you!

Until Next Time,

Debbie (This and That)

What's Your Favorite Time of Day?

 Morning Glory

View outside my window this morning

Good morning friends! Do you have a favorite time of the day? For me, the very best time of day is in the morning when I first get up. There is just something about sitting in my living room in a comfy chair, hot cup of tea in hand, staring out my windows at the beautiful scenery, that just brings me great joy. There is even a scripture in Psalms 30:5 that speaks to morning joy...

Morning is also typically when I read my devotions, read the Bible and work on sermons. It's a great time for journaling as well. When I was still teaching I never had time in the mornings for all of this. The mornings were so early and hectic-getting dressed, doing any morning chores, grabbing a quick breakfast and trying to get out the door on time. I have never been a morning person and school schedules never really worked for me and for my body. I always longed to just be able to have a slow, quiet morning-drinking my tea and enjoying just getting into my day slowly and peacefully. And when you teach, you just hit the floor running when you enter a school building and your classroom. And the running continues for most of the school day. It's a hard job and while I am grateful for my teaching career and all of the joys that it brought me, I am also so very grateful for retirement and for the ability to enjoy these more gentle and quiet morning times on most days now. 

What is your favorite time of day?

I would enjoy hearing from you!

Until Next Time,

Debbie This and That

(Graphics created on Canva.com)