Giving Thanks

"Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American." ~O. Henry

I enjoy this time of year to reflect on what I am thankful for. Granted, I'm trying to be better about "living in thanksgiving daily" but it's also nice to have a day to celebrate those things that we're specifically thankful for. I also love being with family to celebrate the holidays.

Here are a few things that I'm thankful for this year:

*My family. I really don't know what I would do with out them. I am grateful for their love and patience. I am so happy I was able to spend the majority of this week with them! But, right now, I'm also sad it's coming to a close. Did this week seem to go by faster than usual, or was it just me that noticed it?

*The gospel. The gospel means everything to me and I honestly don't know where I would be without it in my life. I love the gospel!

*My Savior. I am so grateful to Christ for His love for us and the ability that we have to draw closer to Him.

A few of the other things I am thankful for:

*Warm house
*Job
*Down comforter :)
*Pets
*The opportunity to live in this country and all the freedoms that go along with it
*Food to eat
*Money
*A car that runs
*Temples where families can be sealed for eternity

What are you thankful for this year?

My family has a tradition of going out the Saturday after Thanksgiving to cut down our Christmas tree. Usually we have a specific place we go but last year and this year my mom and I went to a new place to cut it down. Growing up our whole family would go to cut it, but both years my dad was working and my sister was in Idaho so my mom and I just went. Honestly, it takes a while to find the perfect tree, and this year was no different...but I think we found one in record time. It only took a little over an hour! We started out looking at the trees in the front of the farm and wound our way to the back. We would see one that we thought might work from a distance, but when we got up close it was either too bare or had a twisted trunk or was too short. (The poor trees, they're probably thinking to themselves "gosh, humans are so picky!")

After looking at many trees and not really finding one that was "perfect", we decided that we needed to pick one from the ones we had looked at. We narrowed our choices to about three from the front of the farm that we thought would be fine. Unfortunately, we just remembered them in our heads, but forgot to tag or identify them in some way. When we went up front to look at them again, we realized we had built them up to be "the" tree but couldn't actually remember which ones they were! Luckily there was one that we put a stick in (from the back of the farm) and we decided to go back to that one. After looking it over one last time, we decided it would work and cut it down. They had a little tractor that the tree was put on, so we wouldn't have to carry it, and it was driven up to the front of the farm. A little elf was even driving the tractor! He was so cute. After they shook it to get all the dead needles off, they put netting over it, put it in the car, and we drove it home. Now comes the fun part of setting it up and putting the lights and decorations on it. Such memories we have (and will have) of cutting down the Christmas tree! I love this time of year!