Many people who did not have good Christmas season experiences as children have carried these feelings over into adulthood. But for many young children, the lead up to Christmas can be a very exciting and magical time as they imagine Santa working with his elves before making his long trip to deliver gifts around the world. How can we make the Christmas season a happy occasion for all of our children?
As parents, our attitudes will determine the success of the Christmas season for our offspring. The most important rule in my opinion is to keep it simple. Many of the things that we have on our lists don’t really have to be done in order for Christmas to be successful. The following are some ideas to simplify the Christmas season:
- Try sending e-cards to friends and family instead of mailing out regular Christmas
cards. This not only saves time but money as well because there will be no need
to purchase either cards or postage.
- Shop early. By beginning to shop for the next Christmas at the Boxing Day sales will
eliminate the last minute shopping frenzy. It also spreads the expense of Christmas gift
buying over the entire year.
- Bake ahead and freeze the treats so there is no last minute rush to get all the baking done.
- And try to remain calm and relatively stress-free so that you may enjoy the Christmas
season with your children.
Christmas is for children. There are many things we can do with our children to make their memories of Christmases past good ones; filled with the many things they enjoyed that they’ll want to pass along to their own children. The following are some ideas of things we can do:
- Help them write a letter to Santa and ensure that they receive an answer.
- Let your children help you decorate the Christmas tree. Our trees don’t have to be show
home creations designed to impress our neighbors and friends – Christmas is for families.
- Let the children help to make and decorate some special Christmas cookies; most love to mix
and break eggs. A little mess is not a big problem when compared with the enjoyment
children get from being able to help. This year we made eggnog cookies decorated with
candies.
- Have an advent calendar.
- Take your child to a homeless shelter so they are able to get a better perspective on
Christmas. Have him/her bring a cash donation/food/or something warm to leave for a
homeless person.
- Let your child be part of the whole Christmas experience including helping to buy gifts for a
special aunt or uncle. I took my six year old grandson along with me to buy a few things and
purchased a couple of the items that he suggested. (I hope he was right).
As parents I think we should remember that children don’t need a lot of gifts. They will become overwhelmed and desensitized with the amount; especially if they are also receiving gifts from aunts and uncles and other extended family members. One or two special gifts will be sufficient in making children happy. And for young children especially, gifts do not need to be expensive. Also, children really don’t expect to get everything they ask for on their list.
If we want our children to look back on the Christmases of their childhood with fond memories, it will be up to us as parents, and grandparents, to make those memories as happy as possible. I think the bottom line is that if we remain calm and stress-free, so shall our children be. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Family Traditions at Christmas Time
Traditions are the glue that sticks families together. Many traditions are passed down from one generation to another but a new one can be started at any time. In our family we have many that have been passed down although they may have been altered somewhat over the years. My family, like many families, is very serious about its traditions.
Christmas Eve is the day our family gets together for our special holiday season dinner. The menu never changes because that is one of our very important Christmas traditions. The ‘absolutely-do-not-ever-change’ items are Rolladen, pickled red cabbage, cooked garlic sausage, potato salad, brussell sprouts, pickled beets and pickled herring. I can add other items, and do, without too much harassment. And although many of our family dinners are now buffet-style, our Christmas Eve dinner is always a sit-down one even though we now number twenty-four.
After dinner and everything has been cleared away, it is gift opening time. A volunteer Santa gives out the gifts to the children first before the adults open their gifts. Because our family has grown so large, it now takes us over two hours to open all of the gifts. While we open our presents, we play Christmas music in the background.
Before Christmas we have traditions that are child oriented. They are ones that I did with my own children and which I now continue to do with my grandchildren. My parents did a few of them with my brothers and me. Some of them are:
- the children decorate gingerbread houses, gingerbread trains and gingerbread men;
- they help to make cookie dough and then decorate the cookies before baking;
- we do various Christmas crafts – i.e.: decorate snowmen and snowflakes, etc.;
- the children help to decorate the tree with gobs of tinsel hung on each branch;
- we go to see the annual Santa Claus parade;
- they write a letter to Santa;
- we visit Santa at the Mall;
- go Christmas caroling in the neighborhood;
- drive around and look at Christmas lights;
- and go to advertised local Christmas activities.
Because these traditions have been part of my children’s and grandchildren’s lives from very early ages, they will in all likelihood continue many of them with their own families. I have seen it with my own children. Last year on Christmas Eve day we had an unusually heavy snowfall. I worried about my family driving in terrible conditions and suggested that we postpone our Christmas Eve celebrations until the roads were better. None of my five children agreed with me. They all insisted that we can’t postpone our Christmas Eve celebrations. Thankfully everyone arrived safely and as expected, we all had a wonderful time.
Another holiday season tradition is our New Year’s Day dinner out at a restaurant. It is relatively new to our family as we have only been doing it for about ten years. It is practical in that after all the festivities of the Christmas season and New Year’s Eve celebrations no one is particularly anxious to host a New Year’s Day dinner as well.
This year I have written our first annual family newsletter which I hope will become another family tradition. (It will be an end-of-the-year newsletter) I interviewed each of the grandchildren and put what they wanted to say into the newsletter as near as possible to their own way of speaking and added their pictures and bylines. For the babies I wrote up something for them and added their pictures and bylines also. I then did a review of the whole year with family pictures of various functions which were held throughout the year.
On New Years day of 2000, I wrote a letter to each of my five children and the two grandchildren I had at that time and placed them into a tin box. On New Years day of 2010, I will write another letter to each of my children and grandchildren and will add letters to the new grandchildren to put into the box. And on New Years day of 2020, we plan to open it up and read all the letters, perhaps at our annual New Years dinner out.
I believe a family that has traditions which are important to each of them will tend to be a closer unit. Traditions seem to be the glue that sticks us together.
Christmas Eve is the day our family gets together for our special holiday season dinner. The menu never changes because that is one of our very important Christmas traditions. The ‘absolutely-do-not-ever-change’ items are Rolladen, pickled red cabbage, cooked garlic sausage, potato salad, brussell sprouts, pickled beets and pickled herring. I can add other items, and do, without too much harassment. And although many of our family dinners are now buffet-style, our Christmas Eve dinner is always a sit-down one even though we now number twenty-four.
After dinner and everything has been cleared away, it is gift opening time. A volunteer Santa gives out the gifts to the children first before the adults open their gifts. Because our family has grown so large, it now takes us over two hours to open all of the gifts. While we open our presents, we play Christmas music in the background.
Before Christmas we have traditions that are child oriented. They are ones that I did with my own children and which I now continue to do with my grandchildren. My parents did a few of them with my brothers and me. Some of them are:
- the children decorate gingerbread houses, gingerbread trains and gingerbread men;
- they help to make cookie dough and then decorate the cookies before baking;
- we do various Christmas crafts – i.e.: decorate snowmen and snowflakes, etc.;
- the children help to decorate the tree with gobs of tinsel hung on each branch;
- we go to see the annual Santa Claus parade;
- they write a letter to Santa;
- we visit Santa at the Mall;
- go Christmas caroling in the neighborhood;
- drive around and look at Christmas lights;
- and go to advertised local Christmas activities.
Because these traditions have been part of my children’s and grandchildren’s lives from very early ages, they will in all likelihood continue many of them with their own families. I have seen it with my own children. Last year on Christmas Eve day we had an unusually heavy snowfall. I worried about my family driving in terrible conditions and suggested that we postpone our Christmas Eve celebrations until the roads were better. None of my five children agreed with me. They all insisted that we can’t postpone our Christmas Eve celebrations. Thankfully everyone arrived safely and as expected, we all had a wonderful time.
Another holiday season tradition is our New Year’s Day dinner out at a restaurant. It is relatively new to our family as we have only been doing it for about ten years. It is practical in that after all the festivities of the Christmas season and New Year’s Eve celebrations no one is particularly anxious to host a New Year’s Day dinner as well.
This year I have written our first annual family newsletter which I hope will become another family tradition. (It will be an end-of-the-year newsletter) I interviewed each of the grandchildren and put what they wanted to say into the newsletter as near as possible to their own way of speaking and added their pictures and bylines. For the babies I wrote up something for them and added their pictures and bylines also. I then did a review of the whole year with family pictures of various functions which were held throughout the year.
On New Years day of 2000, I wrote a letter to each of my five children and the two grandchildren I had at that time and placed them into a tin box. On New Years day of 2010, I will write another letter to each of my children and grandchildren and will add letters to the new grandchildren to put into the box. And on New Years day of 2020, we plan to open it up and read all the letters, perhaps at our annual New Years dinner out.
I believe a family that has traditions which are important to each of them will tend to be a closer unit. Traditions seem to be the glue that sticks us together.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Self-Discipline - Getting Where We Want To Go
The difference between thinking about what we want to do and getting ourselves there requires considerable self-discipline. It will also be necessary to combine this with willpower and self-control. There are many things we can do to establish our skills in this area so that we can succeed at whatever we have decided to do.
The following are some ways to increase our inner strength and determination in order to develop self-discipline:
- decide to lose ten or more pounds and stick to our diet until we have reached our desired weight;
- make a decision to have a more toned body or to develop our muscles and stick to an exercise program until we have achieved our goal;
- decide to quite smoking by the end of three months.
Or we can encourage ourselves to do something that needs to be done but that we don’t want to do or feel uncomfortable doing such as:
- cut the grass regularly every weekend even if we’d rather be playing computer games or something else we enjoy;
- make a personal commitment to take the dog for a walk every day, rain or shine;
- if we are shy, make the decision to initiate a conversation with someone we don’t know every time we go shopping;
- if the breakfast dishes are still in the sink every night when we come home from work, determine to do them before we sit in front of the television. (The job will be much worse to do the following day.)
Other ways of practicing self-discipline are:
- if we love chocolate, we won’t eat any for a week;
- if we want to go to Mexico but can’t afford it, we save all of our loose change and put it into a jar towards our trip instead of going for our special coffee every day;
- we can practice self-discipline when we are self-employed by establishing regular hours and working them even if something more enjoyable comes up;
- we can make ourselves a realistic list of what we wish to achieve each day and
commit ourselves to completing each task on our list
All of these things require self-discipline and the ability to self-regulate. If we cheat, we are only cheating ourselves. When we work towards becoming self-disciplined, it will be necessary to be focused, diligent, persistent and persevering.
Becoming self-disciplined helps us to withstand hardships and to endure difficulties in order to achieve our goals. Once we learn this important trait, we will feel in control of our lives and be much happier and self-contented.
Do you quit things a short time after you’ve started them because you don’t have the willpower or self-discipline to complete the task? If we quit things because we don’t like them, we’ll never become self-disciplined or accomplish our goals.
There is a saying, ‘Quitters never win and winners never quit.’ If we all followed that old adage, we’d all be winners. But by learning to be self-disciplined, we will have chosen the path to success.
The following are some ways to increase our inner strength and determination in order to develop self-discipline:
- decide to lose ten or more pounds and stick to our diet until we have reached our desired weight;
- make a decision to have a more toned body or to develop our muscles and stick to an exercise program until we have achieved our goal;
- decide to quite smoking by the end of three months.
Or we can encourage ourselves to do something that needs to be done but that we don’t want to do or feel uncomfortable doing such as:
- cut the grass regularly every weekend even if we’d rather be playing computer games or something else we enjoy;
- make a personal commitment to take the dog for a walk every day, rain or shine;
- if we are shy, make the decision to initiate a conversation with someone we don’t know every time we go shopping;
- if the breakfast dishes are still in the sink every night when we come home from work, determine to do them before we sit in front of the television. (The job will be much worse to do the following day.)
Other ways of practicing self-discipline are:
- if we love chocolate, we won’t eat any for a week;
- if we want to go to Mexico but can’t afford it, we save all of our loose change and put it into a jar towards our trip instead of going for our special coffee every day;
- we can practice self-discipline when we are self-employed by establishing regular hours and working them even if something more enjoyable comes up;
- we can make ourselves a realistic list of what we wish to achieve each day and
commit ourselves to completing each task on our list
All of these things require self-discipline and the ability to self-regulate. If we cheat, we are only cheating ourselves. When we work towards becoming self-disciplined, it will be necessary to be focused, diligent, persistent and persevering.
Becoming self-disciplined helps us to withstand hardships and to endure difficulties in order to achieve our goals. Once we learn this important trait, we will feel in control of our lives and be much happier and self-contented.
Do you quit things a short time after you’ve started them because you don’t have the willpower or self-discipline to complete the task? If we quit things because we don’t like them, we’ll never become self-disciplined or accomplish our goals.
There is a saying, ‘Quitters never win and winners never quit.’ If we all followed that old adage, we’d all be winners. But by learning to be self-disciplined, we will have chosen the path to success.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
