You probably have at least a few family Christmas traditions you remember from your childhood, and now that you have a family of your own, you can create your own family traditions for the holidays.
Christmas traditions are a way to build strong bonds, which is why they are so important. The holiday season can be very stressful, with all of the rush to get the gift shopping done and attend all of the holiday parties before December 25. When your Christmas focus is on shopping, everyone comes home tired and stressed out. So why not turn your holiday around by making it a day of bonding and togetherness?
Don’t know what kind of Christmas tradition to start? Sit down together as a family and have each family member suggest one activity to do together as a family. This can be as simple as baking cookies together or popping popcorn and watching a Christmas movie, or as elaborate as decorating the outside of the house. Regardless, make sure it’s something that will give each family member a chance to participate.
Try everyone’s suggestions, no matter what they are, and evaluate how much everyone enjoyed that particular activity. If everyone likes it, then you can do it again the next year, and the next after that, and ta-da, you have a family Christmas tradition! If something you try doesn’t turn out the way you’d imagined, don’t despair, just move on to the next suggestion and cross that one off your list.
As you participate in your newfound family traditions every year, your own family develops a holiday “routine” of sorts, together with the strong bond of doing things together as a family. Then, your children will look back fondly on what you’ve done as a family and perhaps choose to continue the same traditions when they start families of their own.