Family traditions & holiday celebrations strengthen family bonds. Creating new Christmas traditions will unite new & help existing families cope with grief at Christmas.
Making new Christmas traditions is a valuable way to cope with the first Christmas after the death of a loved one, or yif ou’ve just married into a new family. Creating new family traditions is also a good way to stay healthy at Christmas.
New Christmas Traditions: Christmas Volunteering
Volunteering at Christmas is an excellent new family tradition at Christmas. Investigate the “traditional” Christmas volunteering ideas: food banks, Meals on Wheels, Christmas hampers, etc.
Consider making Christmas volunteering a less traditional holiday tradition, such as making simple Christmas stockings with your family and delivering them to street kids or a youth shelter. A new Christmas family tradition could include visiting sick kids in the hospital or donating toys, books or needed items to the Ronald McDonald House or a women’s shelter. Always call first.
Christmas volunteering makes you feel good about yourself and your family – even if you’re grieving a death at Christmas.
New Christmas Traditions: Christmas Recipes
Creating Christmas traditions should ways involve food! Spend time with your kids, partner, parents or loved ones in the kitchen, baking Christmas cookies or decorating gingerbread houses. Pick a holiday recipe that you only make at Christmas – perhaps homemade candy canes will be your new holiday tradition – and invite friends and family to help make them.
New Christmas Traditions: Christmas Ornaments
New family traditions include making different Christmas ornaments from scratch every year, such as popsicle stick picture frames or popcorn wreaths. Christmas ornaments can become holiday traditions even if you add a new variation each year. For instance, put new family photos in Christmasy picture frames; every year, line them up on the mantle or bookcase. If you don’t have time to make Christmas ornaments but like this idea of creating new Christmas traditions, consider purchasing instead of making a new ornament every year.
New Christmas Traditions: Christmas Stories
Make your family story a new tradition at Christmas. Keep copies of your annual family Christmas card or letter, and read them out loud each Christmas. Or, read squo;Twas the Night Before Christmas or e Best Christmas Pageant Ever out loud to your kids the night or week before Christmas.
Holiday traditions are about you as a unique family, warts and all. Sometimes new Christmas traditions start by accident and continue unattended; other times, you have to deliberately implement your new Christmas traditions.
Either way, holiday traditions are a reassuring, fun, and healthy way to celebrate Christmas.
The copyright of the article Creating New Christmas Traditions in Psychology is owned by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen. Permission to republish Creating New Christmas Traditions in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
We are please to announce the debut of a brand new Christmas Tradition: the
annual TACC Foundation American Charity Calendar! Each year, in time for
the winter holidays, the non-profit TACC Foundation will produce a
distinctive, beautiful paper Charity Calendar using the winning artwork
from the TACC online art contest.
(http://www.taccfoundation.org/tacc_store.html)
On December 1st,
individuals and families can open the first numbered “window" on their
Charity Calendar and find a surprise picture behind the "window".
Audiences will also be treated to an entertaining daily Internet television
series that will interact with that day's paper Charity Calendar's hidden
surprise picture. Watch the daily episode starting Dec. 1 at 5pm CA time on
YouTube or www.taccfoundation.org/youtube
The Charity Calendar
is modeled after a popular Danish holiday tradition that has already proven
to be a huge success. Since 1962, many talented Danish artists have
illustrated "The Danish Christmas Calendar" annually and at least
25 different television productions have been produced while Calendar
proceeds have been donated to numerous noble children's charities.
The TACC Charity Calendar marks the first time this tradition will be
introduced in the United States of America.
The Calendar will be
sold in major retail stores in Santa Barbara County including Borders
Books, as well as on-line via taccfoundation.org and amazon.com. The
proceeds will be donated to a different children's charity each year,
starting with Vitamin Angels (www.vitaminangels.org) in 2008.
I
hope you will consider this new tradition for you and your family For
more questions, please contact Susanne Nagy at info@taccfoundation.com
Nov 6, 2008 8:12 PM
Guest :
I like your site. I just wrote an article on starting Christmas traditions
and linked your article in my resource box. Our titles are the same or
simliar. You had some great ideas that I didnt include which is why I
wanted to make sure to include your link.I put the link in the url box so
if you hit on my name you can read my article. I really liked the one
about saving the christmas letter or card and reading them later. Also the
one for having special recipes. That is the case in our house. AT my dad's
he always served jumbo shrimp or prawns in the red cocktail sauce,every
christmas eve. I miss that since we moved out of state.
Dec 2, 2007
