From The Heart Bring Your Family Together By Taking Advantage Of Holidays
The holiday season sometimes has a way of pinning us against the wall and asking: What the heck are you doing with your life, anyway? Does all this stuff you’re about to go out and buy give your life that meaning you’ve been searching for?
Holidays can be friend or foe, depending on your lifestyle and attitudes. You could use the holidays as an excuse to continue spending and racking up debt on your credit card, or you could use this season as a good time to start rearranging your life so it has more meaning. Take time out to think about what kind of holiday season you’d really like. What does it mean to you? How could you create that meaning? Share this vision with your family and friends, and see if you can create a holiday that has meaning for all of you.
You don’t have to race through this season on automatic, thinking that it is always done a certain way, and it would be too difficult to change now. It takes maybe one or two evenings spent with your family to come up with new ideas. Then each member can take responsibility to create a part of that vision.
Candace and Woody Pidcock of Seattle held a family meeting and created a letter that they sent to their friends:
“Dear Friends: This year we wish to be more intentional about how we celebrate the holidays. We want to simplify our lives so we can have more time to appreciate and celebrate what is most important to us. In the past, media and business interests have misled us into thinking generosity can be measured by the size of our MasterCard payments rather than as a heartfelt desire to give a gift to a person in need. Therefore, we have now decided to limit exchanging gifts to within our immediate family. Instead of buying gifts for us, we ask you to help us simplify our lives by saying “No” to empty consumerism and “Yes” to children in need. We talked about this as a family and agreed it is what we want to do.”
The Pidcocks asked their friends to send contributions to the Children’s Defense Fund.
Last year, my brother, sister and I decided what our parents needed from us was the gift of time. We created a coupon book that was good for 12 home-cooked international dinners to be used throughout the year. One month was Chinese, another Italian and so forth. This encouraged us all to put aside time on our calendars for a time to gather. Needless to say, our parents have very much appreciated this ongoing gift of love.
Young children can give the gift of time, too. They can give each other coupons promising to play siblings’ favorite games or to make breakfast in bed for parents. In this way, they can learn early that gift-giving doesn’t always need to involve spending money.
As always, the best teacher for children is the example their parents set. What message are children getting when their parents spend money on elaborate gifts, rush around in a frenzy and get into debt? Parents can give their children the gift of time as well. Create a coupon book with offerings to spend a Saturday, for example, doing whatever the child wants (within reason, of course!). You could offer to teach a child to sew, play an instrument or ride a bike.
Offer this gift of your labor to anyone, any age. Create a coupon for helping a child clean and organize his/her room. Heidi Wolf of Seattle offered labor to her parents. Her parents agreed to put into a hat all the chores they wanted to get done around their house. Each of the four children picked a chore, and followed through in the coming year. It didn’t matter that the parents live in California and the children were spread throughout the nation; this gave them an excuse to spend time with their parents.
Although we can all create gifts that cost less and are more meaningful, we also need to remember what the season really means to us. Why are we giving gifts? Think about rituals that can bring to life the deep meaning that is associated with the holidays. If it is winter solstice - how can you celebrate the dawning of light and the harshness of winter? If the holidays have a religious meaning - how can you celebrate that spirituality? How can you incorporate those celebrations into your holiday season? Read books together about the stories and traditions associated with your interpretation of this special time. Don’t forget the magic of candlelight and song as a way to bring people together and create introspection.
And also don’t forget to give of yourself in a broader way: Is there a nursing home near you filled with elderly people who have no family? Could you invite a resident to spend the day with you? Could you take this invitation one step further and strike up an ongoing relationship with that person by inviting him or her to your home regularly, or visiting them, or taking them on errands throughout the year?
If you take the time to put at least as much emphasis on new family rituals as you do on gift-giving, you will find that the holidays can have a wonderful new meaning.
MEMO: Janet Luhrs is editor and publisher of Simple Living, the journal of voluntary simplicity. For a one-year subscription, send $14 to Simple Living, 2319 North 45th St., Box 149s, Seattle, WA 98103. Or call (206) 464-4800.