Author: Michael

On a typical Thanksgiving holiday, we’ll spend the day with family—whether at our home, my mom’s, or my brother’s—and eat, watch some football, eat some more, maybe play a game, and eat. Just like most of our friends. This year we mixed it up a bit.

The local Salvation Army was serving a Thanksgiving meal at the Knights of Columbus hall for anyone who wanted a meal, no charge. A friend from our church was leading this effort and seeking volunteers so we signed up to help. Suzanne and the kids waited tables and I washed dishes in the kitchen from 12:30 – 2:30 this afternoon. We chose to postpone our own dinner (or “feast” as Maura called it) until after we’d finished, and we all gave up eating a mid-day meal as a way to remember and identify with those who had no food today. This was a good lesson for the kids, especially Liam and Maura since it was the first time they had voluntarily gone without a meal. They were reluctant to join in at first; Maura, who is our resident foodie, wasn’t sure she’d be able to skip a meal—but she did and she did well. Once back home we gave thanks and feasted.

Also less-than-typical is that our family includes two members who are on the other side of the world for this holiday. Brenda Fleming, one of the other AWAA adoptive parents we met while in Ethiopia, was at the transition home with Aidan and Eva today and sent us a few dozen photos of the kids–this was a great gift. Suzanne mentioned the other day that we’re back to a period of waiting in our adoption process. Our paperwork, along with that of three other families, is supposed to go before the judge in Ethiopia again tomorrow and we’re praying that everything is in order so that we’ll pass court. We’d love to be able to share that announcement of thanksgiving this weekend and would appreciate your prayers to that end.

We hope you’ve had a blessed Thanksgiving as well. We truly have much for which to be grateful.

Note on the photo: these creative desserts were designed by Lee Barnes, a retired industrial engineer who resides in Lincoln. He delivered them to the Salvation Army dinner today and took the time to share with Suzanne the loving and painstaking process by which he creates them. The ingredients include chocolate sandwich cookies, candy corns, a Whopper (not the hamburger kind), frosting, and a red hot.

We’ve now completed two full days in our No Complaining Week experiment. Everyone is still wearing their green ribbons. How’s it going?

Monday went pretty well. We remembered that the Lord had made the day and that we would rejoice and be glad in it. We each had a minor violation and had to wear the Cone of Shame for a brief time but, overall, no major complaining fits or meltdowns.

Tuesday, however, was another story. Each of the kids spent time under the Cone of Shame for arguing or complaining. In a couple cases, additional time and/or penalties had to be added.

In summary, then, a couple observations so far:

• The kids do not like wearing the Cone of Shame. I mean, they really don’t like it. When I initially proposed this idea over the weekend, I thought they’d think it was kind of funny: “Ha ha! Look at me with a silly hat on my head, just because I was ungrateful!” Nope. It is truly the Cone of Shame.
• For me personally, I am seeing the ways in which I frequently think negatively and unproductively. Whether I say it aloud or not, I complain more than I’d care to admit. This morning, in fact, I was in conversation with a couple friends at a local shop and found myself complaining about a particularly silly (to me and my friends) government regulation. I stopped but not before I voiced my complaint. I must therefore submit myself to the prescribed penance.

A few folks have wondered what the Cone of Shame looks like. Below, Maura models one of our green reminder ribbons (because green means gratitude) and everyone is shown wearing the Cone of Shame. I was hoping I could get just one kid to wear it (for the purpose of making a photograph to show on the blog) but no one would wear it unless we all wore it. Evidently they were too ashamed.  With that, then, I give you the green ribbon and 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.

Our oldest daughter, Erin, is in fifth grade this year. Her class has been studying Native American tribes the last few weeks and working in project groups to prepare a report on their findings. Erin’s group was assigned the Eastern Woodland tribes. As part of their project, Erin built a model of a wigwam with authentic materials: toothpicks, hot glue, bendy straws, and pieces of felt. She worked hard for several evenings and did a terrific job with it.