This year, Citylife Kids! made a special art project for Thanksgiving! We call it, The Thanksgiving Tree! Each child wrote down something they were thankful for on a paper leaf. After the glue and sparkles were dry, they displayed their leaf on the Thanksgiving Tree!
Here is a photo (sorry for the camera phone quality) of their beautiful tree which will be displayed again this Sunday in the lobby, one last time!
At Sunday School, we sat in a circle to talk about the things that we were thankful for! I always love to hear what the kids have to say, and we know that it’s genuine. We had a time of prayer in which we thanked God for his many blessings in our lives. I love to remember the purpose of this important holiday. For your enjoyment, here is a small portion of the Thanksgiving Proclamation given by Abraham Lincoln. Enjoy!
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation. “The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. …They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.” Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth. By the President: Abraham Lincoln
