At last count, my kids have asked me 231 times in the past week when we are going to make our Thankful Tree this year. We created our first tree a few years ago when I was trying to find a way to help the kids understand the meaning of Thanksgiving and have been making one each year and had so much fun that we made it a family tradition.

The week before Thanksgiving, we sit down as a family to make the tree and everyone picks a different color of construction paper. Each person traces their hand prints five times, cuts out their prints and writes down what they are thankful for on their "leaves."

We always include our three dogs by making a set of paw prints for them and have fun coming up with what we think that they are thankful for. I am positive that our 12 year old dachshund is pleased that we include food as her top item each year. Before Trevor could talk, we also came up with items that he was thankful for, such as "Anything the color blue" and Thomas the Train.

We then use brown construction paper to make a trunk for the tree and tape it on the back of a door inside our house. We’ve learned the hard way to make sure that the tape that you use doesn’t pull off any paper. Next, we hang the "leaves" for each person on the tree and read aloud what everyone is thankful for. I’m usually surprised by the things that the kids pick each year, such my daughter being thankful for cats (which we don’t own) and the fact that one of Trevor’s leaves always says "broccoli".

Since we usually host Thanksgiving at our house, I often look at the paper tree while I am running around getting everything ready in the days before the big dinner. Whenever I see the purple leaf where I wrote "My Family", I stop and take a breath. I remind myself that the holiday isn’t really about making the perfect mashed potatoes or having an adorable pilgrim centerpiece, it is about spending time with the people who sit around my dining room table.

Jennifer appears Mondays on TriangleMom2Mom.