Family Traditions for the Holidays
Winter Season Traditions
Building a stronger family unit is the goal of every mother I know! Holiday family traditions are a great way for families to come together to celebrate the fun and festivities of the winter season. I just produced show 021 titled Winter’s Fun Family Traditions hosted on The Organized Woman Show. My sister Cindi was my invited guest. She has done such a great job of bringing her family together each time she sees an open opportunity. She shared three fun ideas for building family closeness with winter time family traditions. My show partner, Laura, and I each shared three ideas of our own for beginning new family traditions. Listen to the show by clicking on the bolded link a few lines up. Learn about Cindi’s family’s “Story around the Tree”, Laura’s family’s “Christmas Eve House” and my family’s “Camera, Lights, Cocoa” family traditions.
My friend, Kim Shields, who is SO GREAT at finding time not only for her own children, but including many of the neighborhood children in her fun times, emailed me a these great ideas:
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- Make sugar cookies together, decorate them and deliver them to neighbors. Enjoy the tasting as you do the baking. Happy tummies make happy workers.
- Pull out the Christmas books, put them in a basket and read the stories together while snacking on pop corn and yummy hot coco each night around the tree.
- Reminisce together over the gifts you have received or have given to someone you value.
- Read the Christmas story from the Bible on Christmas eve. Dress the young children up in simple costumes to act out the nativity story.
- Try to do something nice for someone else who is in need each Christmas. Deliver a meal and/or toys to a family who really needs some help.
- Buy a boxed gingerbread house at target (about $12) and decorate it with your family. Be sure to buy extra candy so the kids can eat up as you design and compile the house accents.
- Set out a “Countdown to Christmas Calendar” where each day the kids find a very small treat, (think a M&M or hershey’s kiss) to consume each morning before they take off for school. (This is another Winterton family tradition also.)
- Build a “Holiday Chain” for each child’s room to count down the days before Christmas
- Have a treasure hunt for a hidden gift the day before Christmas
Try to make sure your new family traditions include the following:
- Make it fun: This is a must. Kids will bail if fun is not part of the tradition
- Do it annually for as long as it works: Repetition is what makes a tradition a tradition
- Size to fit: Make sure the family tradition grows with your child. When your daughter becomes too cool for the bedtime hug, give a gentle “arm punch” instead
- Keep it simple: So simple they can be done each year with very little pre-work.
The key to maintaining winter time family traditions is identifying those traditions that you enjoy and those you don’t. I can’t think of any traditions that don’t require forethought and planning. Consider the winter traditions that you want to do with your own family and plan for them. If you spend your valuable time and energy on activities that you don’t find rewarding, you are destined to become frustrated and cranky. Be honest with yourself before you start one of these new traditions. Make sure it will accomplish your goal of building a stronger family unit.
10 Responses to “Family Traditions for the Holidays”
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December 2nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I have carried on a holiday tradition from my childhood and have found that my little family loves it as much as I did. Every Christmas Eve each family member gets to open one gift from Mom and Dad. That gift is always a new pair of pjs. I have added to the tradition by putting a little “snuggly toy” in for the child to take to bed with them that night, and a Christmas story book that we rad before they head off to bed. I always write a note in the story book and the books get packed away with the Christmas decor at the end of the season. We also have the tradition of reading a family story by the Christmas Tree every night in Decemeber, so the books from the previous years become part of our Christmas library from which the kids can choosse from when it’s time for a book each of the 24 nights leading up to Christmas.
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
For many years our family always had a special Christmas eve time where we sang Christmas carols, read the Christmas story out of the bible and I would give each family member a special gift with a Christmas theme. Our family is larger now and some have to travel an hour or so to get to our home. So Christmas eve became more difficult to get kids back home and into bed at an appropriate time before Santa came. Because of this, we have elected to do our Christmas get together the Monday before Christmas makeing it a special Christmas Family Home Evening. We still do all of the traditional things from before, but have now added a “talent show” to the program with every one participating. The older ones sing, play the piano, show off a recently received sports trophy they have earned etc. and the younger ones show us the colors they have just learned, receit the ABC’s or display their latest page from their favorite coloring book or hand drawn picture. Everyone participates. Then we have the Christmas story topped off by each family bringing their favorite Christmas treat to share.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Our family tradition is buying a real Christmas tree that is still in the planting bucket. We keep it up all Christmas and then (weather permitting) we plant it in January somewhere in our yard!
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Thanks you three. I love your ideas. Thanks for sharing with other readers. Happy Holidays!
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