This is the small Lemon tree in front of my house. On Thanksgiving morning, I presented my kids with paper tags and asked them each to write down something they were thankful for. After they did so (with much grumbling and suspicion from my teen) I took the tags (including mine) and tied them on branches of the tree. Then I put a bunch of the blank tags in a clear plastic “pencil case” (the kind that go into school binders), in addition to a green Sharpie pen and a piece of paper that read: “This is the Thankfulness tree. Please take a tag and write what you are thankful for!”
At the end of the day, there were actually a couple more tags hanging on the tree, but I was a bit disappointed that there weren’t more. The next day, however, more people were out and about after spending Thanksgiving in with family, and the tree began to fill up with beautiful blessings of thanksgiving! After several days and then weeks (I left the tags up through New Year’s Day, not really having thought through when I would “end” the project), there were more than 150 blessings and greetings dangling from the branches of the tree. It was such fun and so gratifying and uplifting for me to overhear people exclaim over their discovery of the tree and it’s function and others just stopped by to read some of the tags. Interestingly, there were a lot more readers than there were writers. I found myself sometimes silently saying — “c’mon, dive in, be silly, write something!” Then there were people who just walked right on by, never noticing or caring that this tree was full of unusual tags — harumph!
I’m still not sure what I will do with the tags — right now they’re in a pile on my kitchen counter — but here is a sampling of some of the things folks wrote on them: “I am thankful for my wonderful husband and our first year of marriage”; “I am thankful for my sobriety”; “Gracias por que mi bebé esta en perfecto estad de salud”; “I am thankful for not living on the streets and for having Starbucks”; “I am thankful for this tree and and all the people who left such thoughtful messages”; “I am thankful for my familey (sic) and troop (sic)” (in a child’s writing); I am thankful for the life I have and all that I have — U.S.M.C GYSGT Retired”; “I am thankful for being a Muslim and living with other religions peacefully!”; “I’m thankful for Medicare”; “I am thankful for my bird, my dog, and my friends.”; “I am thankful for Jesus Christ and what He did for us”; “I am thankful I have God in my life he gives me so much I’d have to use up this entire tree!”; and, “I am thankful for you putting up this Thankful Tree!”. There were also tags written in Turkish, Hebrew and Chinese.
That tree filled with those tags was/is an affirmation of my faith in the essential beauty of people. It was such a joy to have it up in front of my house as a daily reminder of that. Of course there were a couple of crude tags that my teenage daughter quickly discovered and disposed of, but aside from those, each comment was an expression of happiness, gratitude and blessing. I owe a thank you to my teacher Keri Smith for the idea of the tree — her work is all about how to bring more creativity and fun into our lives. Maybe next year we can spread the idea to many more neighborhoods!
Renaissance Gal 