Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Sam the Service Turkey

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Today I came up with a fantastic new Thanksgiving tradition. Sadly I feel Thanksgiving gets majorly skipped over... it's like the stores discount their Halloween stuff and move directly into Christmas. I love Christmas, of course, but I also LOVE Thanksgiving... the food, the colors, the leaves, the cute sweaters unmasked by big coats, the perfect weather, and most of all a time focused solely on gratitude. So today I decided I needed to come up with a fun kid tradition for our family (as well as a sharing time activity for church on Sunday with the kiddies). The answer... Sam the Service Turkey! The idea just popped in my head. Here he is:
How he works: We discuss that people can show their gratitude by serving others. Sam the Service Turkey is missing his feathers and by Thanksgiving he needs to have them all... but he has to earn each one. Each time we do something kind for others we get to put a feather in Sam. On the back of each feather I wrote an idea of something kind to do to help others. On Sunday I plan to have the kids act out the ideas on the feathers and have the others guess and then pass out a feather to each kid to remind them to do service at home this month.

How to make Sam: I went to the craft store and his creation cost less than $10 including tax! Granted his neck and legs are made of 1 toilet paper roll, but I had to be frugal. Obviously by the looks of him all you need is 2 Styrofoam balls, 1 piece of red foam paper, 1 toilet paper roll, a piece of ribbon, 2 googly eyes, feathers, brown & yellow paint, and hot glue. Simple.
(Note: His head/beak is actually carved from a small block of floral foam because it was $2 cheaper than the ball)

4 comments:

Zach and Sarah said...

This is an AWESOME idea. Thanksgiving ties with July 4th for my favorite holiday (though I love them all), probably because the expectations are so low and it's all about family. Anyway, love it.

Lindsay said...

Serious! I don't know how you do it! Adorable. I might have to make that Kath!!

Emma and Dan said...

I love this idea! I will steal it as soon as possible. As much as I love and look forward to Christmas, I always wait until after Thanksgiving to get excited for it because a holiday based on gratitude is worth celebrating.

I love that I knew that Sam was homemade as soon as I saw him (even though he looks amazing!) because I recognized your handwriting in the letters "Sam". I miss your perfect handwriting! :)

Melissa said...

Such a cute family you are- your daughter looks so much like you. Love the service turkey- I guess its okay we never ended up being next door neighbors because your creative craftyness puts me to shame.