Happy Winter, Everyone!

Here we are once again in the middle of another holiday season. Whether your preferred holiday is Solstice, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Hanukkah, or something else, a common way we all seem to move through this time is via rituals and traditions. Traditions help us shape our holidays and give us a direction as we plan our celebrations.

But, traditions are also about memory. When we act out even a small ritual such as baking gingerbread cookies, we are connected instantly to past years' holidays and memories that can be priceless to keep close. For many of us there is an important connection between certain rituals we do and ideas of family, spirituality, warmth, and love.

But what do we do when our traditions no longer serve us? Sometimes we actually outgrow certain traditions and other times they can create stress when our holidays are meant to be relaxed and joyous. There are ways to approach the holiday season in a conscious way, keeping traditions we love and saying goodbye to those that are just dusty relics. We can also create new traditions for our family and friends! All traditions have a beginning point. There's no reason that point cannot be right now!

• If finances are a concern, you could propose switching to a "swap" with a cost limit instead of heaping on the gifts. A single meaningful gift can bring more joy than many gifts we may or may not really want. 
   
• Take one of your current traditions and add a new twist to it. Whether it's a new riff on an old family recipe or a new idea for group volunteering over the holidays, sometimes our old traditions can benefit from a makeover.  
    
• Try out learning and incorporating traditions from other cultures or religions. Or, share your religious/spiritual traditions with others who celebrate differently from you. A multi-holiday open house could be a new tradition!
   
• Does your tradition tend to mandate you doing all of the cooking and decorating for holidays? Start a new tradition by delegating to others or suggesting that the holiday celebration changes venues this year! Be bold by asking others to take a more central role.  
   
• Are you invited to too many celebrations? Too much stress with scheduling?  Too many sweets? Too many potato pancakes? Be conscious about cutting back this year. Choose only the celebrations that are truly important to you and gracefully decline the rest.
   
• Do the holidays feel noisy and hectic to you? Start or renew traditions that emphasize peace, gratefulness, and spirituality. Make sure you have the quiet reflection and balance you need as you go through this season.  

Your challenge for this month: As mentioned above, do the writing activity about your holiday traditions. Write down the traditions you want to keep and also the traditions that feel worn out or stress-inducing. Once you've done this writing, share it with someone you tend to celebrate with on holidays. Ask this person for his/her imput on traditions and see what comes out of the conversation. Will you change any traditions this year?

Email me once you've done the challenge to let me know what you are learning. As always, I'd love to hear from you.