Our North American friends have just celebrated (or survived!) another Thanksgiving holiday. This is one tradition from that part of the world that we could all take to heart.

Why is this idea so important? Why talk about it here on the Golden Goose? (Aside from making the Goose nervous in case this is the year someone decides to switch from turkey!)

This is what I think. When you live your life with this so called “Attitude of Gratitude” it means that you take a moment, from time to time, to really appreciate what you already have.

That can be hard to do, especially at this time of year with a tidal wave of retail catalogues pouring in the door. It is all too easy to get lost in a mindset of “I’ll be happy when I get a new [gadget, pair of shoes, car, TV or whatever else.] Very quickly that path leads to being envious of people around you who have those things themselves. That is a dangerous path indeed, doomed to end in resentment at the world for not giving you ‘what you deserve’. That is not the sort of person anyone wants to be around!

Developing that habit of feeling thankful for what is around you, be it family, friends, a roof over your head or a flower in full bloom, is a wonderful antidote to the ‘by more stuff’ pressure of the Christmas season.

A couple of years ago my brother in-law started a tradition at the Christmas table. He asks each person to take a moment and share what they have been thankful for in the past year. At first it was a little awkward and most definitely strange, but we settled in to the idea fairly quickly. I’m looking forward to it this year, though I haven’t a good idea of what I’ll say just yet.

Almost certainly kids around you are working hard putting the pressure on for what they want for Christmas. Our certainly are. Twilight. Barbie. Transformers. PS3. Wii. The list never seems to end. How do you combat the hundreds and thousands of advertising messages that children will be exposed to in the next few weeks?

That is where the gratitude attitude comes in. It is never too late to take some time with your kids to find a few things to be really thankful for. In the process you may even find a few things that could be passed on to goodwill and make someone else’s Christmas more happy.

One way to help put kids in a good frame of mind to realise how well-off they are is to look around the world at how little most people have. A great book that explains this (and plenty more) is If the World Were a Village – which presents the whole world as a village of just 100 people.

When you feel thankful for being alive, having people around you to love and be loved by, your mood takes an immediate lift. Share this with those around you!

Kids clean up in a billion-dollar industry [SMH]: AUSTRALIAN parents are spending more than $1 billion on pocket money a year but children are expected to do far less around the house in return … experts say [chores] are important in developing life skills

This story illustrates the problems when parents don’t consider the philosophy of pocket money. Take the time to think and discuss your own philosophy to handing over the cash.

Curiously in the week following that article, I had two encounters with my son to do with performing housework. The first was early in the week – after a couple of loads of laundry had been done, the clean clothes were piling up on the lounge-room’s couch. Awaiting sorting and packing away by the owners. A few tense words of suggestion were aimed at Mr 12, encouraging him to do his part. The reply? A great big sigh. Fairly typical of a proto-teenager perhaps, but it didn’t go down very well as you can imagine!

The second was a far more positive interaction. Later in the week my wife was due out at band practice, but had lost track of the time. As I arrived home, she was heading out the door having put some rice on to cook for dinner. Here’s where the fun begins : I took this as a chance to get the kids helping out in the kitchen. Quickly enough we began to pull ingredients out to see what we could make. Directing traffic, I involved both Mr 12 and Miss 9 in washing, peeling, chopping and preparing bits and pieces. The whole operation took around 20 minutes, producing an acceptable fried rice dish with bacon, chilli chipolatas, snow peas, corn, carrots and so on.

What really made my night was, after dinner, Mr 12 spontaneously said “that was really fun, when we were cooking!”

My point? Sure, pitching in with the household chores isn’t always fun, but when you get a chance to make it a communal activity it really can turn a dull chore into an opportunity for family fun (and a little bonding to boot!)

Sometime in the next week create an opportunity to involve the kids in a household chore. You may even all enjoy it.

This article examined a number of philosophies, or systems of pocket money. From reasons why some may choose to shield their kids from money through ideas about sharing the family income to the traditional chore-based schemes.