The Lord offered amazing weather and lots of lovely opportunities to bump elbows with our neighbors at last week’s Fall Gathering. The leftover candy’s been stored for the Christmas Parade because our church is SO generous when it comes to donating treats to replenish after each trunk’s first 400 pieces are gone. Trunk decorations are packed away, the gaga ball pit is stored until next April, and the leaves have been blown away from the entrances.

We turn the calendar page and it’s November. Everywhere I turn it feels like November has turned into the first month of Christmas. So what to do?

Music – I Wanna Be Thankful; sharing a Spotify playlist of thanksgiving songs.

Thankful Pumpkins – Keep the pumpkins out to write the names and places we are thankful for on a craft pumpkin with a sharpie throughout the month or leave it sitting in the Welcome Center with sharpies available.

Pumpkin Palooza – The Sunday before Thanksgiving we enjoy our typical large group with songs, games, and Bible study followed by roaring rounds of Thanksgiving Bingo with pumpkin prizes: pumpkin story books, pumpkin notepads, pumpkin cereals, anything pumpkin which we’ve been collecting all fall.

Stuffed Animal Sleepover – The Sunday before Thanksgiving, littles bring a stuffed animal friend to church to stay the night. Ambassadors stay a little later to take pictures of the stuffed critters all over campus in various stages of mischief. I then post every hour or so all night long and all morning long for parents to ‘discover’ on their social media feed until the littles return for their stuffed animals on Monday morning for breakfast and some early Thanksgiving game fun and a blessing. Added benefit: Each time parents check the photos on the McEachern Kids FB group, the FB algorithms adjust so that everything I post for the next month will automatically roll into family feeds.

Thankful scratch-off turkeys, headbands, masks, and popcorn with thankful cootie catchers and airplanes for church to home.

We wish to serve and celebrate the goodness and faithfulness of God. We are called to be thankful people, giving thanks in ALL circumstances, showering others with gratefulness, and modeling an attitude of gratitude. Yeah, I’m doing that in November. Christmas can wait. Bring on the turkey and some really good college football.

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for  you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

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