Gratitude Journaling as a Family
For 2021 I’ve decided that as a family we need to shift our mindset a bit. 2020, with all of its challenges, taught me a lot. There are a lot of things I don’t ever want to take for granted again. We talked a lot as a family all year about the times people made lemonades out of lemons. Car parades instead of birthday parties. Backyard dinners instead of indoor gatherings. Drive-thru end of school year celebrations instead of graduations. I think it helped us all a lot to focus on the good instead of what we were missing out on (and truthfully, despite all of the canceled/reimagined celebrations, we were very, very lucky). Going into this new year, when things will hopefully—eventually—start returning to “normal,” I’d like to keep the positive momentum going. I can’t think of a better way to do that than focusing on gratitude.
I remember hearing about gratitude journals way back on the Oprah show. It seemed like such a good idea back then, and I even started my own journal. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep up with it. When I was dedicated to keeping a paper planner, I would write at least a few things down each month. I haven’t written anything down in a long time, but I do have a little nightly ritual where I think about the things I’m grateful for. I miss the act of writing them down though. I don’t know if I’m even going to bother with a paper planner this year, but I’ve decided that each member of my family needs to start a gratitude journal. We’re home more than ever, so I’m hoping that we can use this time to make it part of our routine that we can continue even once things pick up again.
So how are we going to do this and make it stick? I have some thoughts…
- Schedule time for it every day. I’m thinking before or after dinner. We can adjust as necessary to make it work.
- Get everyone excited about it from the start. Talk it up, decorate the journals, and just have fun with it.
- Discuss as a family how many things we should write down each day. Something that feels manageable to everyone.
Fortunately, this is was a no-cost project for us. I love stocking up during school supply sales, so we have quite the collection of composition notebooks that we were able to use. We also have stickers, markers—even vinyl and a cutting machine—to personalize the notebooks any way we choose. Anything works! You can use any materials you have at home. The journal itself could be anything. Spiral notebooks, little notepads—you could even print out pages and staple them together.
First we chose our notebooks. I pulled out all of the composition books I have and let everyone choose their favorite. I had enough variety that everyone could have a different color, and everyone is happy!
Next we started planning out the pages. I kept mine pretty simple. I can fit at least two other years in this notebook, which is cool. Some other members of the family were not as keen on the idea of filling out the whole year at once. Whatever works!
To decorate the covers, we pulled out Sharpies and stickers and let everyone have at it. Some are still in progress. I found a bunch of Erin Condren stickers in my stash, but they’re not sticky enough to stay on the cover. Packing tape fixed that! That sticker isn’t going anywhere. 🙂 I thought about using my Cameo to cut out some letters in permanent vinyl, but I ended up writing the words by hand. I can get fancy in a few years when I need a new journal.
We had our first two journal sessions after dinner (because I’m running behind as usual), and after we all wrote our three things we shared them. It was sweet to hear what everyone had to say. They ranged from “my family” to something specific that happened. I’m feeling optimistic that we can keep this up, and I can’t wait to see how it changes each person’s thinking.
Happy New Year and happy journaling!
