Making the Christmas Holiday Special by Building Traditions

One of several things you can do at Christmas is to build a new tradition to pass along to your children. Start something unique that can be enjoyed by both kids and parents every year.

One way to come up with a tradition is to look into you and your spouse’s childhood, and try to remember anything special you did and enjoyed as a child that you can bring back into your life. Carrying on old family traditions are the best idea and making them your own.

One thing to decide on early in the holiday season is where you will spend Christmas, will you stay at home and have a quiet day or with you have a large gathering at your house or a relative. Either way is fine as long as the family all agrees. You may have to alternate Christmas gatherings is both families have gatherings, one year go to your spouse’s family and the next, yours.

A good place to start is your tree, whether you use a real or artificial you can build a tradition, for artificial you can have the whole family around to help put it together and decorate, while playing holiday music and baking cookies. For a real tree, take the whole family to the tree farm and pick one you all love. Then decorate it together. Have a fun way of deciding who puts the topper on the tree every year.

With fresh trees you will probably have to trim some of the branches on the bottom, have your kids make decorations using these leftover branches and hang them around the home. Or donate them to a nursing home or elderly neighbor.

A wonderful tradition to bring in is helping those less fortunate. You can do this in so many different ways. Have your children each pick a paper tree off one of the Christmas wish trees (usually in wal-mart) and have them help buy the ‘wish’ that is on the paper tree and take them to deliver it themselves. Or have them go through their toys and donate some to charity. Give food donations or even volunteer at a local food bank to help the homeless. This teaches empathy in your children and also shows them that the holiday is not all about what they receive, but also about what they give to others.

Cooking at the holidays can be a tradition as well, be it the family helping make and decorate cookies, or even just what you eat every Christmas day. Of course baking cookies for santa is a fun family activity.

Wrapping gifts for extended family together, a special movie each year (for us it is a Christmas Story); driving around looking at Christmas decorations around town, mistletoe, and many more are fun and easy traditions to bring to your family.

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