Thanksgiving Week: No Whining or It’s the Cone of Shame

Do everything without complaining or arguing – Philippians 2.14

This Thursday, like most Americans, we’ll celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. In an effort to help cultivate grateful spirits, we’re undertaking a little exercise this week.

As a family, we’ve designated this No Complaining Week. Beginning Monday morning, we’ll all wear green ribbons as bracelets to remind us to be thankful. Why green? It’s representative of abundance, and “gratitude” and “green” both start with “gr” — it’s a mnemonic thing. The goal will be to make it through to Friday without complaining. If someone does complain, they will don the Cone of Shame (similar to a dunce cap) and will not be allowed to talk for two minutes. We’ve taken the idea for the Cone of Shame from the Pixar movie UP, in which dogs who were guilty of some special offense against the community had to wear a cone.

I expect that we’ll all have to wear the Cone of Shame at some point, perhaps even have to take turns with it. As we discussed No Complaining Week over dinner tonight, six-year-old Maura exclaimed, “I’m gonna die!” Evidently she’s foreseeing herself wearing the Cone of Shame quite a bit.

We’ve never done this before but figured it would be a fun and good experiment to try. Hopefully we’ll all come through it more grateful at the end of the week.