Are you hoping to strengthen your family ties this holiday season? Try out these six creative ideas to improve your core relationships.
1. Make
a Time Capsule
A fantastic way to end the year and bond with
your family is to create a time capsule. The first step in guaranteeing your
time capsule is a success is picking a safe space to bury or leave it for
several years. You'll want to ensure that rodents, water and dirt can't enter
the capsule and damage the articles inside. Consider purchasing a stainless steel
time capsule container made precisely for this purpose.
Now for the fun part–as a family, determine what to include in your capsule. Should
it just have memories of the year or the decade? Additionally, write down
gallon milk and gas prices so you can remember back to the cost of living. If
you get a newspaper, it might also be fun to include one in your time capsule.
Finally, you’ll want to set a timeframe for
when you wish to reopen your capsule. Do you want to bury it for ten or twenty
years? Make a note of where you keep it buried and put it on your calendar to
open it as a family.
2. Eat
a Meal Together
During this holiday season, make an effort to
eat a meal together with your family every day. When the family sits down to
eat, everyone slows down and
takes time to enjoy conversation and catch up. As you hear how each family
member's day has gone, you learn more about each other and your bonds
strengthen. This fosters better familial relationships and you can stay up to
date on significant happenings in your family's life.
Another aspect to consider is preparing the meal
together and then sitting down to enjoy it together. Children can learn how to
cook a meal and appreciate any small role in the kitchen you assign. If you
find sitting down for dinner every night is too tricky for the family schedule,
try a family breakfast. As long as you’re eating together, that’s what
counts!
3. Create
a Family Cookbook
Fresh off of your family mealtime, why not try
gathering all of your favorite recipes together and make a cookbook? During the
holidays, we often think of turkey, but that isn’t the only option when it
comes to compiling holiday recipes. Ask your extended family members for all
their best, most unique or celebrated mealtime recipes.
For example, many people think meatless meals
are flavorless and dull, but that is not true! When you compile a family
cookbook with an array of ideas, you continue family mealtime traditions, and
your children get to learn all sorts of new recipes.
4. Start
Family Movie Traditions
Why not adopt a new tradition this holiday
season? Consider marathoning movies from a specific series like Harry Potter, Star Wars or Lord of the
Rings. Pick different holiday classics like Elf, Home Alone or The Grinch. Or maybe each Sunday, a
different family member gets to pick another movie for the entire group to watch.
Set the scene with appropriate holiday snacks like cookies and hot cocoa.
5. Curate
a Family Playlist
A fun way to celebrate the last year is to
create a family playlist. You can easily do so on Youtube or Spotify and have
the entire family contribute their favorite songs from the past year. Pick one
family member to act as a curator who can organize the songs and share the
playlist once it's complete.
Make the playlist creation an event–you can
play the songs for the entire family, exposing everyone to new music. Have each
family member pick a song and explain their reason. Maybe the song helped them
through a breakup or was their go-to song during workouts. Once the playlist is
complete, it will likely be very eclectic in terms of sound and genre. But
then, isn’t your family just as unique?
6. Volunteer
in the Community
While home for the holidays, a great way to
give back to your community is to take time to volunteer. When
you volunteer as a family, you get the added benefit of bonding with your loved
ones. Because so many families in America face food insecurity, consider
helping at your local food pantry or teaming up with a mobile pantry in your
community. When you give your time and money to your community, children learn
valuable lessons about social responsibility.
Enjoy the Holiday Season With Your Family
Because you have more time together over the
holiday season, be intentional about spending quality time with your family.
When you try any of the six ideas above, put down your phones to better engage
with your loved ones. You’ll find you have a deeper and more quality connection
as a result.
