Making Christmas Joyful For Your Family

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Dear Santa

Great to see children thinking about what will make other people happy at Christmas. I know we’ll be flat-out with preparing the sleigh from Christmas Eve, so any final seasonal thoughts for Parents?

PercyPostElf

Dear Parents

Percy Postelf, Mrs Claus and I all agree that Mark’s dad will appreciate a present that’s been carefully chosen. We started talking about the madness of Christmas shopping.

Remember the lyric ‘The fox went out on a windy night’.

As parents, you know that a fox in the hen coop can go on an unsatiated killing spree.

I sometimes think children can be a little like that when there’s an overabundance – ripping through everything without taking time to savour anything.

Maybe this festive season feels like a crisis time for some.

Here are two key thoughts that might be helpful:

1) Somewhere I read that the Japanese word for ‘crisis’ also means ‘opportunity’.

What would happen if we saw our current situation as an opportunity?

What if we all asked ourselves:

‘What’s the opportunity for our family in the current crisis we’re experiencing?’

2) ‘Less is more’ and ‘slow’ have become global movements. Reflect on how this might be true for your family this Christmas.

Let’s choose “less presents and more presence”.

“Happiness does not come from having more, it comes from loving what you have.”

If you’ve enjoyed these posts you’ll want Val Mullally’s parenting book Behave – What To Do When Your Child Won’t