The holiday season is upon us shortly, and I am just so excited. One thing I love about Christmas is that it brings out the love. People are more willing to tune out the world and focus on family, Christ, service, and, of course, love.
I’ve been thinking about family a lot this year, especially because for the second Christmas in a row, my brother is out on a mission. Having my brother gone has made me want to celebrate family even more, so here are a few new traditions that focus on the family:
Holiday Time Capsule
The idea behind the holiday time capsule is to create a record of the love within a family and watch how it grows and changes over time.
Starting this Christmas, have your family members write letters describing what they love about each other and the memories they have from the past year. Young children can draw pictures to represent the love they feel in their family.
Spend a night reading through the letters and sharing thoughts with each other. Once you have gone through all of the family members, seal the letters in a decorated envelope, Mason jar or whatever else would fit in your home and display it prominently on a bookshelf or a mantelpiece in your home.
Next year, before writing new letters, take out the old letters and reflect on how the love in your family has grown and evolved.
Christmas Dinner Wishes
This is a twist on an old Victorian Christmas tradition in which family members all took turns stirring the Christmas “pudding,” which was a stew with beef and mutton and all sorts of spices and vegetables.
Each family member took a turn stirring the pudding and making a wish.
This would be a great tradition to reinvent with young children. Have them help you prepared Christmas Eve or Christmas dinner—sifting flour, washing vegetables or kneading bread dough—and then when everything goes into the oven everyone gets to make a wish that gets cooked up as the ham turns golden!
Not only is it fun to makes wishes at all ages, this experience can be full of quality family time and kitchen education.
Christmas Morning Photo Book
Another fun thing to do, especially with young couples, is to start a Christmas morning photo book. Every year on Christmas morning, pause a moment before the gifts, before the mess, and before you get out of your PJs.
This is a great way to commemorate Christmas morning and a fun way to display family photos around Christmastime. It would also be really fun to take goofy pictures!
Collect them all in a holiday-themed photo book and put it on your coffee table or near the Christmas tree. As your family ages and grows, so does the photo book!
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Molly is a 2011 graduate of Ohio State University, where she graduated with a journalism degree. She is now working on a master’s degree in digital journalism at the University of Southern California. She loves exploring new places, reading, crafting and meeting new people.