The Little Things in Life

I can’t believe how quickly the holidays are approaching! With Thanksgiving less than two weeks away, it seems that people are already stressing out over holiday preparation and activities. How about you?

While it’s true the holidays cause a certain level of stress for most people, from personal experience, I know that holiday time can be particularly stressful for co-parenting relationships. Trust me, I’ve been there! So what can make the holidays joyful and meaningful as you venture into a changed family structure? For one, try creating one or more new traditions.

To provide an example, let me share a tradition I started with my daughters. At the time our family separated, my daughter’s were still quite young. Early on it happened that we started a tradition of playing holiday songs while decorating the tree. Over the years we played the same set of tunes over and over and continued this tradition well into my daughter’s teen years. Feliz Navidad was a favorite. As for carrying on the tradition, even after my oldest daughter went off to college, we saved her ornaments to put on the tree when she came home.

Twenty-three years later, the girls are now young women. Still, when we are together, we talk about our annual tree trimming, reminiscing and laughing over the numerous funny things that happened over the years. As we do, it continues to amaze me how a simple activity like decorating a tree has brought us so much joy and lasting shared memories.

So, what new tradition will you create? It doesn’t have to be a holiday tradition. You are limited only by where your imagination takes you!

Happiness and peace to you during the upcoming holiday season!