161: Cultivating Gratitude with Your Kids During the Holidays
What if gratitude could actually make you more beautiful from the inside out? In this conversation with Meredith Curtis, we're exploring the transformative power of cultivating gratitude in your homeschool family—and how thanksgiving changes not just your heart, but your entire countenance and home atmosphere.From Thanksgiving traditions that knit families together to miracle stories of God's provision, Meredith shares decades of wisdom on raising grateful children who focus on Jesus instead of consumerism.In this episode:✅How cultivating gratitude transforms you into a more beautiful person (yes, really!)✅Simple Thanksgiving traditions that build faith and family unity✅The crab legs miracle story that reminds us nothing is impossible with God✅Practical activities for the holiday season that shift focus from presents to Jesus✅Why serving others creates grateful hearts in your childrenReady to make gratitude a daily practice? Grab the free 30 Days of Gratitude Challenge mentioned in this episode and join hundreds of families started November 1st!Recommended Resources:30 Days of Gratitude ChallengeGrand Prize GiveawayGod's Girls Beauty Secrets Bible StudyCelebrate ThanksgivingJesus, Fill My Heart & Home Bible StudyChristmas Unit StudiesMeredith "GrandMerey" Curtis, mom of 5 homeschool grads and grandmother of 8, writes, speaks, leads worship, and loves celebrating God's goodness at every opportunity possible, believing that gratitude is the secret to joy. She enjoys creating homeschool curriculum and Bible studies for Christian families, as well as writing Maggie King Mysteries, wholesome cozies. Find her at PowerlineProd.com, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.Show Notes:The Beauty Secret That Changes EverythingMeredith Curtis is here with me today, and we're talking about gratitude. Meredith, y'all know I run the 30 Days of Gratitude Challenge, and I get guest bloggers to come in and post on our blog. I think Meredith has done it every single year I've ever done this. I know that's your heart. I know that's my heart. Gratitude just can do so many things for us.Meredith is a homeschooling mom who graduated her 5 children. Now she's grandmother to 8, so far, and all of them homeschool. She's a pastor's wife, a worship leader, a writer, a speaker, and she loves ministering to homeschool families. She's created a lot of curriculum, and she just started a mystery series called Maggie King Mysteries.Gratitude as a Beauty SecretMeredith, you have actually talked about gratitude as being a beauty secret. Can you sort of explain what you mean by that, and how you've seen gratitude actually transform someone from the inside?Meredith: I've always believed this, and I remember my grandmother used to say to me, beauty is as beauty does. When I was a young woman, teenager, young adult, young wife, I wanted to be beautiful on the inside. From my grandmother, I grasped that principle that beauty on the inside flows to the outside.One of the passages that really stood out to me was 1 Peter 3:1-7, and how God commends Sarah as a beautiful woman because of her gentle and quiet spirit. That got me on the road to thinking about beauty. I actually have a Bible study called God's Girls Beauty Secrets.When you're kind, when you're grateful, it changes your heart. Gratitude changes your focus from self to the Lord. Kindness changes your focus from self to others. When you're grateful and you walk into a home, or you walk into work, or you walk into your homeschool co-op or church, and you're having a conversation with people, it changes the expression on your face.You have more of a smile, you don't have those frowny frown lines. You have a beauty that emanates from you, and I think people want to be around you when you're like that. They want to be around people that are grateful, because it's gonna be raising them up rather than pulling them down.I'm a pastor's wife, and I see all the terrible things that happen to people. Mike and I have gone through so many trials. I think that sometimes the Lord just has to remind me, be grateful, be grateful, be grateful. When I am grateful, I notice the way people respond to me is very different than when I'm complaining and bitter.Beauty isn't just about a symmetrical face. Beauty goes so much beyond that, because it's your poise, it's your confidence. A truly beautiful woman walks into a room, and she's like, God is good, I'm so happy to see all of you, and her focus is completely on other people. That is beautiful.The Physical Impact of Bitterness vs. GratitudeYou know, as you're saying that, I do believe that however you're thinking on the inside is going to come out in your facial expressions, in your gestures, the way that you hold yourself. I also think, unfortunately, the opposite is true. Someone who is bitter—I have friends that are still holding bitterness towards people, and they're the ones that are in the hospital all the time. They've got illness, like, physical illnesses.Bitterness in your heart can actually mess up your insides. But the opposite of bitterness—you're forgiving, and you're grateful, and you're thankful, and you're kind—and that person, I think, God just blesses. When you have that attitude, people are like, oh, I want to be around them. Who wants to be around someone that's just complaining all the time?Passing Down Gratitude to GrandchildrenLet's talk about your grandchildren. Are there some things that you have been doing, or are doing, to pass down these values of gratitude and of your faith as well? Do you have any traditions that you're really cultivating a spirit of gratitude?Meredith: With Thanksgiving coming up this month, the first one I think of is we have a Thanksgiving tradition where before we say the blessing, we all pass around—sometimes I pass around kernels of corn, there's like this Thanksgiving poem about kernels of corn—or sometimes we just share things that we're thankful for.That is really powerful, because there's always tears. There's always something that's bittersweet, where someone's gone through something hard, and yet they're thankful for the things God did through it, or the people that helped them through it. There's just so much knitting together of family as people are thanking one another.Another thing I do with my grandchildren specifically: whenever they come over, I always ask them, what was the best thing that happened today? And then I always say to them, isn't God good? And then they say, yes, he is so good. That's not necessarily a tradition, but it's a habit that I've purposely cultivated with them to focus on the positive and be grateful.That's so interesting. When I'm with my grandkids, especially if I'm taking care of them and their parents are gone somewhere, and we're getting ready for bed, especially when they're younger, like 5 and under, I'm like, okay, we're gonna pray before we go to bed. I want you to think of one thing that you can say thank you to God for.That way, I'm like, we're gonna think. The only thing you have to say is, thank you, God. It does sort of make them think, well, what did happen? What can I be thankful for? That's such a simple way to say thank you, and it's thank you to God for whatever had happened.The Birthday Tradition That Honors PeopleMeredith: On birthdays, we always go around and talk about why we're thankful for the birthday person. Everybody shares, like, I'm so thankful for you because I love the way you do this, I love the way you do that, I appreciate it. My kids have carried it on, so at Cooper, my grandson just turned 9, and we were at the birthday party.They always start all their family birthday parties with just the mom or dad saying what they're thankful for, with all the kids there. They do it with all the kids' friends there. I think not only is it a blessing to the other children, but it's a blessing to the parents that are there.We do that a lot in our church, too, with people on a birthday. I noticed Paul does that in his letters. He'll say, I so appreciate you because of this and this and this. I was talking to someone the other day, and I was like, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, who were the squirreliest church in all of the New Testament, and he starts out thanking the Lord for them. There is no one we can't find something to be thankful for.You know, that's really important, too, because I have heard people say they're in a really difficult marriage, and they're just like, there's nothing good about my husband, there's nothing good. And I'm like, does he go to work every day for your family? Okay, there's one thing. Do you have a house that you live in? There's always, even in the most difficult situations, you can find something to be thankful for.When Gratitude Shifts the AtmosphereIs there anything else? Maybe you're walking through a difficult situation at your home. Has there ever been a time where gratitude sort of shifted the atmosphere during that difficult situation?Meredith: My husband right now is battling cancer, and it's been really hard on my kids. The Lord has been really good, but one of the things that I notice is talking with one of my children, and we'll both be talking about dad, and then we'll both kind of sniff, you know, like, suck back the tears, and then we'll just talk about what we're grateful for, like, what the Lord has done.There's just so much that God always has done. I think because of that psalm that says, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise—I always start with thanking God. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I just lay there and start thanking God. I've trained my children to try to find something to be thankful for, so even in the most difficult situations.The Miracle of Crab Legs and Strawberry CakeI remember years ago, this is over a decade ago, we didn't have money. We had enough money to pay some bills, but not all. The whole family, we got in the family room, and we got on our knees, and we were praying. We were desperate for God to come through, but yet our prayers were so filled with thankfulness.We were thanking Him for all the times in the past that He had provided. I remember when we got up as family from our knees, we were fully, fully confident God was gonna come through. I remember Jenny Rose saying, well, I just wonder how God is gonna take care of this. I know He will.There's no testimony without a trial. Sometimes in the middle of a trial, when you can even just thank the Lord—I thank you that there's going to be a testimony in this.One story I can tell you that has to do with thankfulness: my niece came to visit one summer. This is when Mike was in seminary. We had no money. I would make hair bows and sell them, and that was our grocery money. My niece was there, it was her birthday.I said, what would you like for your birthday? And then I thought, wow, why am I asking her this? She said, I would like a strawberry cake with vanilla frosting, and I would like crab legs.I took her hand, and I prayed with her this really simple prayer. She wasn't a believer at the time. I said, Lord, thank you that you're the God who provides, and you hear this little girl what she wants, and I pray that somehow you would do a miracle and provide for that. I was not necessarily full of faith. About 5 minutes later, I was kind of like, what have I done?We had this food pantry, and they would have, like, you could pay a dollar, and you could get a bag full of groceries. That day, never before and never again, they had a strawberry cake mix and a vanilla frosting. We brought it home, I made the cake.It was getting close to dinner, so I thought, okay, I'm just gonna have to tell her, sometimes God says no. We get a knock at the door, and our pastor comes in with a grocery bag, about 4 feet high, filled with crab legs. Can you take these off our hands?I just remember saying, nothing is impossible with God. That filled our hearts with so much thanksgiving, and believe it or not, almost every time we face a difficult situation, we remember that story. God has probably been thanked for that story by my kids that weren't even alive then.When we pray boldly and see God answer, it builds a thankful heart in us even more. When we see God move, it helps us when we face difficult circumstances, because then there's a groundwork that, yes, God is good.Building Faith Through GratitudeJust the fact that y'all—I think it's growing thankfulness with our kids, but also their faith. When they see things like that, they do want to be thankful and continue to look back at that, but that is just another little step of building their faith that, look, God came through for us.It's really important, personally, keeping a gratitude journal. If I had to do it over again, I would keep a family gratitude journal. That way, you can record the things your kids are saying, and when bad things happen, you pull that thing out and read some of them.God wants us to record what He's done, and to be able to remember. Sometimes it's just verbally saying it, but sometimes we forget what He's done. The other idea is that we really believe in miracles. Sometimes we don't ask, because we don't think he's going to come through, and yet you just shared stories. He came through!Practical Activities for the Holiday SeasonWe're going to be sort of in that Thanksgiving-Christmas season. Do you have any practical activities that parents could do, families could do, to really build a habit of gratitude in the hustle and bustle? How can we be intentional during these holiday seasons to build that habit of gratitude in our kids?Meredith: First of all, the 30-day gratitude Challenge. That is a great one. I love that it's geared for children and for teens.The thing that I talked about earlier of going around before Thanksgiving dinner and sharing things that you're thankful for. As we were talking, I just thought, you know what I'm gonna do for our church is put a post at the top of our Facebook group, and just put the word gratitude, and I'm just gonna ask people, would all this month, when things happen, will you just post under that things that the Lord did to come through, or answers to prayer?What I used to do when the kids were little at Thanksgiving is I would put up a poster. Sometimes I did an answered prayer poster, I would write answered prayer, and then I would make columns, and then as God answered prayers, we could list the prayers. Or other times it was just what I'm thankful for.There's a craft that I've done, a thankful tree, where you make leaves and write something you're thankful for and glue that on.Serving Others Creates Grateful HeartsI also think just serving others gives us a grateful heart. There's one thing that it's almost the time will almost be up to turn them in, but it's the Shoebox Franklin Graham's ministry. When the grandkids were really little, like 2 and 3, the oldest ones are 9 and 10, I would take them to the Dollar Tree, and they could fill the box, and then I would just purchase everything, and we would wrap it up, and they would write a note.That just instills thankfulness. It could be serving at a soup kitchen. One year, I remember we adopted a poor family, and I remember it was a really dilapidated part of town, and we climbed up these rickety steps to the apartment on the second floor and delivered presents. I remember my kids, on the way home, they were thinking, wow, we're so blessed. When you see other people struggling, you realize how blessed you are.Christmas Carols and Focusing on JesusAnother thing that we do is we sing Christmas carols and have devotions all through December. On Christmas Day, we have these super long devotions. It's basically Luke 2, with a Christmas carol after every verse. We always sing, like, 3 or 4 verses, so it takes us, like, an hour. Then we sing happy birthday to Jesus.What that has to do with thankfulness is it sets the tone that Christmas isn't about presents. Christmas is a birthday, it's about a king, it's a king's birthday. We're gonna make the main focus of this day, Jesus. When you focus on Jesus, even the fact that he came in the Roman Empire, which was so evil—we think times are evil now, but the Roman Empire was so evil.He was born to a poor family, and he lived a perfect life, and how many times did they try to kill him? Finally, he let them take his life, and he died for sins, and he rose again. The more that we can gaze on that as families, in ways that are fun and relaxing and filled with love, the more children can gaze on Christ, the more they will be thankful.I think Christmas carols—there's something so powerful about the words to Christmas carols, especially if you go beyond verse 1. Even the song, God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen, there's, like, 8 or 9 verses, and every one of them is powerful. I think that there's something about the theology in them and the old hymns, too, but especially at Christmas time, the carols. Focusing on Jesus creates a thankful heart, too. Above all.Oh gosh, it's been 10 or 15 years ago, we were singing O Come All Ye Faithful, and we were singing the third verse. There's a line in there, God of God and Light of Light. We were studying the Roman Empire after Jesus' time period, but the church was growing in our history. Athanasius was standing up to say, no, Jesus was actually God. He was on the run because they wanted to kill this man.That phrase in that O Come All You Faithful verse, God of God and Light of Lights, was exactly what they were saying back in history at that time. We need to expose our kids to the verses. Pick one Christmas carol each year, and just sing it all the time. Go into the verses, use it for copywork, talk about what that means at the dinner table.Serving others—we did the same thing. Steve was head of the Benevolence Fund, and he would pick one of the families that really needed help. We'd go buy a turkey dinner for them with all the fixings for four or five people. The first time I did it, I was at the store, and I was like, they've got kids. We should get some Christmas gifts for them.We did that for 10 or 15 years, and would take it to a family that didn't have much. It really puts your kids in—it gives perspective to what is going on around us. Too often, we see the people that seem to have more than us, and we don't always see the people that have less than us.Resources From MeredithIf people want to reach out to you, Meredith, what would be the best way to find out more about you?Meredith: I do have two resources that I think people would enjoy. One is called Celebrate Thanksgiving, and it has hymns and prayers and poems. It has the entire story of the pilgrims in it from going to Holland, and then coming back, and then going to the New World.It has a lot of different Thanksgiving things, like the Macy's Parade. Then it talks about how to plan Thanksgiving festivities, like a pie breakfast or a praise and prayer brunch, or the big traditional family dinner, or a family football game. It's got a lot of different social things that you can plan. Some are really simple, some are more challenging, and then planner sheets to do it.The other book is called Jesus Fill My Heart and Home, and it's a Bible study. It talks about, first of all, letting Jesus live and abide in our hearts. Then it talks about how to bring the presence of God into your home in a really practical way. It touches on cleaning and all kinds of aspects of homemaking, but it does have a great chapter on holidays.It goes through the different holidays and how to celebrate holidays with a Christ-centered focus. Those are available at PowerlineProd.com. I have a store, lots of resources, lots of curriculum, lots of high school classes, and Christmas unit studies.I also have a blog on the site, PowerlineProd.com, and if you go there, there's links to our Facebook group, Powerline Productions. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and everything else from there. I'd love to hear from you.Final EncouragementAs we close out, is there anything that you would like to leave our audience with?Meredith: Yes, I would like to say this. Life is hard. I'm sure some of you listening are going through challenges, maybe challenges with homeschooling your kids, maybe grown children who've wandered from the faith, maybe health challenges.Jesus promised—the least favorite promise in all of the New Testament is, in this world, you will have trouble. But it doesn't stop there. It goes on and it says, take heart, because I have overcome the world.I just want to remind you that Jesus has overcome the world, that He is for you, not against you, and that if you put your hope in Him and your trust in Him, He will pour out grace and provision for everything you go through in this life. He will open your eyes to see so much beauty, and so many blessings, and so many people who end up coming in and just wrapping their arms around you and loving you that you don't expect.Draw near to Him, He will draw near to you, and eventually, one day, if you know Him and are born again, you will be with Him in heaven forever. It starts with just opening your eyes and being grateful, but there is so much more.Ready to transform your home with thanksgiving? Sign up for the free 30 Days of Gratitude Challenge at HowToHomeschoolMyChild.com/gratitudechallenge. Join hundreds of families cultivating gratitude together starting November 1st!
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