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Thanksgiving Prayer Ideas For Family Dinner

A Thanksgiving prayer for family dinner can be used year-round. Use this list as a guide to help your family lead grace before their meal together. This Thanksgiving, consider the following prayers to help open up your meal with family and friends.

Thanksgiving prayer for family

Why? You might ask? Because doing so truly gives everyone a minute to pause and recognize all the wonderful things we have been given in this life as well as an opportunity to show and teach gratitude.

What do you say before Thanksgiving dinner?

A Thanksgiving prayer for family dinner can sound like pretty much anything you want, of course! However, if you are looking for some guidance, I wanted to share with you a few ideas for the family that I found online that I thought were simply beautiful.

They each have their own sound that you could repeat verbatim or change as needed.

Thanksgiving Prayers For The Family

If you haven’t prayed in a while, I think this is a great holiday to start. It’s a holiday that is all about family and I believe that everyone can find something to be thankful for on this particular day. 

thanksgiving prayer for family dinner

Thanksgiving Prayers For The Family

I’m going to split up these prayers into different sections – some that your children can say, others that need to be led by an adult, and a few that you should read alone.

A traditionist would say, 

“Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our LordAmen.” 

But I want to show you a few different options. 

Thanksgiving Prayers For The Family – led by an adult

Ralph Waldo Emerson prayer

For each new morning with its light
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything thy goodness sends.

For flowers that bloom about our feet;
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet:
For song of birds, and hum of bee;
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee!

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Prayer for Thanksgiving

Related: Things To Be Thankful For – Thanksgiving Activity Sheet

Thanksgiving Prayers For The Family – led by a child

thanksgiving dinner prayer for family

A Child’s Prayer: God is Great. God is Good. And we thank God for our food. By God’s hand, we must be fed. Give us, Lord, our daily bread. 

A Child’s Prayer: Thank you God for all that grows. Thank You for the sky’s rainbows. Thank you for the stars that shine. Thank you for these friends of mine. Thank you for the moon and the sun. Thank you, God, for all you’ve done. 

ABC Thanksgiving A Child’s Prayer: ABCDEFG – Thank you God for all I see. HIIJKLMNOP – Thank you God for my family. QRS and TUV. Thank you, God, for loving me… WX and Y and Z On Thanksgiving II thank thee. 

Related: Kids Will Gobble Up These Fun Turkey Treats

Related: Fun Fall Suckers

How can I thank God for his blessings?

What prayers do you have in mind for the upcoming holiday? Who usually starts off the festivities? Do you have a specific family member that holds the title? Is it the eldest? The youngest? Would love to hear.

How can you thank God for his blessings during this holiday season? You can simply start by… starting. It doesn’t have to be scripted. It doesn’t have to be rehearsed. Just open your heart and speak from within.

Related: Order Your Thanksgiving Dinner Online

Thanksgiving Prayer Ideas For The Family

My Walk Back To The Church

Church has become such a priority for my family since 2017. That wasn’t always the way. It took us a while to get back into the groove, but now I am happy to say that the children have developed such a personal relationship with the Lord. We couldn’t ask for anything more.

When my husband and I got married, we honeymooned in Hawaii. When the weekend rolled around, Bill did a little research and found a local church mass to attend on our first Sunday together as husband and wife.

I didn’t join him if I am being honest with you because I was so upset that he wouldn’t give up his tradition while we were trying to make new ones of our own.

Many years later, I look at his commitment to God as one of the many reasons why I love him so much. I recognize today that I was young and selfish at 24. But I also look back on that memory fondly – and not with bitter taste. It took me some time, but I have come around full swing.

My relationship with the church has been tumultuous, to say the least. In High School, I experienced something that I will never forget and it truly turned me off from the “establishment.” Only through children and through my marriage have I found my way back to the Lord.

I’ve always maintained a relationship with Him, but I never participated in masses or gatherings because I believed the institution as a whole had let me down. I felt that I didn’t need someONE or someTHING to help me better my relationship with God.

I just needed to have it on my own. So, I sort of shunned the whole concept and moved on with my life – despite an entire history of Catholic education under my belt.

Well, twenty+ years of healing and now I can say that we have found our way to a different institution, but are warmly welcomed into a Lutheran congregation.  We have made such amazing friends and truly never miss a Sunday mass. 

Who would have thought? Me… the girl who decided to dismiss all parts of religion – would find herself enveloped in the Message once again? Thank God for that…

This Thanksgiving, we wanted to have a Thanksgiving prayer for the family that summed up all of our thanks. In case you were in the market for some ideas, I’ve attached a few prayers that I’ve come across online for your review.

I know sometimes we struggle to come up with the right words. If you find yourself in that same boat, here are a few tips for you.

thanksgiving prayer guide

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