Joy Jar

It is so easy to get caught up in the stresses of each day and forget to count our many blessings. A little something that I love to do throughout the year is a “Joy Jar”. Here’s what you do: at the beginning of the year, get an empty jar. (I am personally on the Mason jar bandwagon. I can’t get enough of them. Especially the blue ones. Ha! But any jar will do!) Label it “Joy Jar” and decorate it however your heart desires. I love to put glitter on basically everything in life. Let your kids glue on small trinkets, stick stickers, whatever they can imagine (well… maybe don’t glue on the pet hamster, but pretty much anything else).

IMG_7848

After the outside of your jar is looking rad, paint the lid of your jar in chalkboard paint. This will make it easy for you to reuse your jar each year. Simply write the year on the top of the lid in chalk and erase after the New Year to write the next one. Piece of cake. Vanilla cake….. with strawberry frosting. YUM.

image3

Next, I cut out a bunch of small pieces of paper. I like to get different patterned and colored scrap booking pages or wrapping paper. At the end of each day (as often as you can remember), have your children write down one good thing that happened to them that day. Fill up the jar throughout the year with all of the good stuff, and on New Years’ Eve, sit down as a family and open the jar together. Remember all of the joy and blessings that you experienced that year. Your kids will love reading through all their scraps of paper, movie stubs, and tiny trinkets. It is also an easy way to build a spirit of thankfulness in your home—and who doesn’t want that?

image1

image2

One thought on “Joy Jar

Leave a Reply