Reviving the Gratitude Pumpkin

 A few years back, we had a gratitude pumpkin for the month of November, leading up to Thanksgiving. It was so simple -- all you need is a pumpkin and a Sharpie. Every day, people in the family would spontaneously write things they were grateful for on the pumpkin. No explanation needed, just a word or a few words to capture the essence. For whatever reason, I didn't make this a priority lately (most likely due to the hectic, demanding nature of life and work), but I happened to have a spare pumpkin at my disposal this year, and voila! the Gratitude Pumpkin has been revived:


Lots of times, I've tried to start a gratitude journal practice, and honestly, it doesn't take too long before it feels forced, and I'm just looking for stuff to write down. Know what I mean? But with the gratitude pumpkin, I think a few things make it appealing:

1. It's a community effort. We all add to it, and it's really neat to see what other people add. This weekend, our second-grader grandson wrote "football games," in anticipation of screaming at the TV  cheering on the Steelers with his Dad & Pap on Sunday. My daughter, whose boyfriend has an internship 2 hours away during the week, wrote simply, "FaceTime." I noticed that after dinner tonight, someone wrote, "Pizza." It made me thankful for delivery meals, too. 

2. It's on an unexpected canvas. I actually doubt I'd get the same participation rate if I slapped a journal down on the table and declared it a November Family Gratitude Journal. There is something about writing on the skin of a pumpkin, creating the spiral of thanksgiving as we go. It's just different enough that the novelty inspires people to join in. 

3. It's entirely organic. Yes, the pumpkin itself is, but what I mean is that the process is organic. I simply put a pumpkin and a Sharpie on the table. That's it. No forced, "It's dinnertime, children, now you must be grateful and record your gratitude upon this pumpkin" nonsense. It's simply there, when you want it. And it's cool to walk by and see that someone has added to the pumpkin since the last time I looked at it. No daily goal, no obligation. Just invitation. 

4. It's time-sensitive. We don't do this allllll year long, so it doesn't have time to get stale or feel forced. It's just November, and the pumpkin goes away, tossed in the backyard on December 1. Too often, we drag things out far past their natural shelf-life, and the result is what I described above -- adding to a list to check a box for the day. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to try this one other time a year, like with some other object in July or something, but for now, November with a pumpkin works just fine. 

It's only November 10, friends. Not too late to add a gratitude pumpkin to your table in the last few weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Try it, and let me know how it goes! 


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