My best trick for keeping consumerism at bay, and thankfulness front and center during the holidays.
You will often hear me talking about the science of gratitude. How such a simple thing, can have profound effects, on our deeper levels of subconscious thinking patterns. So to keep this point relevant, I created the gratitude jar.
Well, actually, I was really pissed off one year, around Christmas, because of the mass consumerism being pushed at my child. And she was falling for it.
I’ve seen people make these types of things for places they have been, and things saved, but honestly… I’m not usually one to plan that far in advance.
Hence, the gratitude jar was born. I took an old pickle jar, printed out a cute saying, and even spray painted the lid! Yay me!
As you can see, an entire year went by, and I never printed a new date . If I can do this, anyone can do this!
I cut out some squares of construction paper, and kept them on the lid, so we would have paper handy when something came to mind.
The main idea here, is to write down what your thankful for, throughout the year, and put it in the jar. Then, around Christmas, or New Years, empty the jar, and read what everyone wrote!
We loved this so much our first year, that we’ve kept it now, for about 4 years.
Not only does your body release positive hormones while you write down your grateful, it later encourages MORE gratefuls, and relieves some stress around the holidays.
You can write anything! From air to breath, to trips taken, to pets and people… Even guests added things! I loved reading what my mom wrote.
The more the merrier with the gratitude jar. I hope your family loves this idea as much as we do!
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