Our Mindful Holidays

Welcome to the December Carnival of Natural Parenting: Let's Talk Traditions

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama.

Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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With small children, a lot of people I know are talking about traditions, and what makes the holidays special for them. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and about my family's perception of the holidays, and how we celebrate. We have several traditions, though I didn't think of them as traditions until I started really thinking on what our traditions are.

We decorate for the holidays. We decorate for pretty much every holiday. At Valentine's Day, we make construction paper Valentines and hearts for our friends and family and put them around the house. We put bunnies and colored eggs and spring time things out at Easter. For Fourth of July, we don our red, white and blue, put up lights on the porch, and wave our flags. For birthdays, we hang cards on a door until the entire door is covered. At Halloween, we pull out the spooky spookies and put them all over the house and yard. At Thanksgiving, we put out gourds, pumpkins, and our fall colors. For Christmas, we put up the tree and the stockings, fill the mantle with our holiday village and many snowman, candles, angels, and Santas. We spread the cheer around the house, hang the holiday cards from the door, and play Christmas music.

We make decorations ourselves. We do all of our decorating for not much money, save decorations from year to year, and work with what we have on hand. At Halloween this year, we made a graveyard in our front yard using paving blocks we had leftover from a landscaping project. We made construction paper and cardboard decorations. We painted and glued. We made a Halloween tree centerpiece for our table by painting black a branch found in the yard. We made construction paper ornaments for it and hung them from strings. For Christmas, so far, we have made ornaments for a handmade ornament swap with our friends, and painted winter/holiday stencils on our dining room windows with acrylic paint.

We make handmade gifts for those we love. Instead of buying gifts for the majority of our loved ones, we make them by hand. Creating something with love is a way of giving someone something that holds your love it in all year long.

We tell stories. We tell our children holiday and age appropriate stories. For Christmas, we go for the stand-bys like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Twas the Night Before Christmas, along with personal holiday stories, such as that Daddy gave me my engagement ring on Christmas a long time ago, before we had a Bean and a Bug.

We encourage magic. We encourage our children to believe in magic, love, and hope. We feed them on the stories and dreams that help them to evolve magic in themselves.

We encourage giving. We talk about people who don't have as much as we do. We give clothing and household items we no longer need to people who do need and would use them, by taking them to the battered women's shelter, giving them directly to people who are homeless, or giving them away on Freecycle, etc. We give gifts to one another and those we love. One of my famous sayings has become, "I hate to think that we have so little that we can't share some with those we love the most."

We encourage delayed gratification. We know that we will be getting gifts for Christmas, and as our children think of things they want, we encourage them to wait until after Christmas to see if they either get what they want, or get something that they might enjoy more or be able to use for the same purpose. We also delay our own purchases until afterwards to see if they are truly necessary.

We focus on the positive. We avoid blue Christmases, scary Halloweens, cynicism, fear, or stress. We just focus on love, encouragement, happiness, and the joy that we get to be with one another. We spend time with those we have in a capacity we can - my mother has been enjoying reading bedtime stories to my kids from 600 miles away. We are grateful for what we have. We do not dwell on what we have not.

So, it turns out that my family has many more traditions than I had imagined starting out! They may not involve baking, caroling, or volunteering at a soup kitchen, but they are what we have created together and they are just perfect for our family!

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Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

• Traditions? What traditions? — Olivia at Write About Birth needs your advice: how can she make the most of the holiday season in a new country with only her immediate family? (@writeaboutbirth)
• TRADITION!!!!!! — Ella at My Intentional Journey reminds us all to be thankful for family traditions; there are those who have none.
• tradition! — Stefanie at Very, Very Fine came to realize that families can make incredible memories, even if they're not wealthy (or organized).
• Taking a child's perspective on traditions — Lauren at Hobo Mama wants to keep in mind how important even the mundane traditions will be to her little ones. (@Hobo_Mama)
• Sunday Dinners and Lullabies — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment finds traditions in the small things throughout the year.
• Simple Family Advent Traditions — Michelle at The Parent Vortex crafted a set of advent bags with daily surprises to eat and to do. (@TheParentVortex)
• Parenting: Family Meetings - A Timeless Tradition — Amy Phoenix at Innate Wholeness discusses a year-round tradition in her household: Family Meetings. (@InnateWholeness)
• Our Mindful Holidays — They may not be "traditional" traditions, but they fit the family of Kellie at Our Mindful Life.
• Our Holiday Traditions, New and Old — Even with three young children, Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings is finding ways to be intentional and meaningful about holiday traditions. (@sunfrog)
• Our Cupcake Custom — Amy at Anktangle knows celebrations need minimal excuse and lots of cupcakes! (@anktangle)
• On the bunny slope of tradition-making — Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama is finding her groove as a holistic-minded mama with a joyful holiday spirit. (@crunchychewy)
• No, Virginia, There Is Not a Santa Claus — Just because her family is not going to do Santa, does not mean that Sheila at A Gift Universe can't instill some mystery and magic into Christmas. (@agiftuniverse)
• New Traditions — Becky at Future Legacy shares a few traditions she is starting for her family, including popovers, a birthday banner, and service.
• My Holiday Family Traditions — The Artsymama continues a long tradition of adopting family members and sharing two favorite games that work well for a crowd.
• Mindfully Creating Family Traditions — Alison at BluebirdMama has ideas for celebrating birthdays, Valentine's Day, and Christmas — though her family's still figuring some of it out. (@bluebirdmama)
• Memorable Traditions — Lori Ann at MamaWit follows four mindful steps when instituting any tradition.
• Let's Talk Traditions — Lily, aka Witch Mom shares her family's traditions that are centered on the wheel of the year. (@lilyshahar)
• Homeschool Christmas — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now did not always celebrate the Christmas season in the same way with her family, but they always celebrated together. (@DebChitwood)
• Holidays, food and family — For Kristen at Adventures in Mommyhood, the holidays are about family and food. (@crunchymamato2)
• Giving Christmas to the Critter — Rachael at The Variegated Life has found a way to tie her Zen practices to the Christmas story of the baby in the manger. (@RachaelNevins)
• Family Traditions + To Santa Or Not To Santa — Stop by Natural Parents Network to discover some of the traditions from other natural parents. NPN is also featuring snippets of posts from NP bloggers on the topic of whether to encourage children to believe in Santa Claus. (@NatParNet)
• Family Tradition Origins — Momma Jorje discusses her family's traditions, and her desire not to make anyone feel obligated to conform to them.
• Everyday Traditions — For Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children it's the small, daily traditions that make life special.
• Establishing Traditions and Older Child Adoption — MrsH at Fleeting Moments is trying to find ways to start traditions with a family that was made very quickly through birth and adoption.
• Emerging Family Traditions — Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! shares some of her favorite birthday and Christmas traditions. (@bfmom)
• Does Rebellion Count? — Seonaid at the Practical Dilettante has instituted a day of rest and PJs at her house on Christmas. (@seonaid_lee)
• December Carnival of Natural Parenting: Family Traditions — Sybil at Musings of a Milk Maker tries to give her girls a mix of traditions to foster togetherness — but worries that not being near extended family is a disconnect.
• Craft-tea Christmas Celebrations — Lucy at Dreaming Aloud created a delicious Christmas tradition that she named "Craft-tea."
• A Christmas Tradition — Luschka at Diary of a First Child knows that even though she won't be able to have her usual holiday traditions this year, the important thing is that she has her family. (@lvano)
• Celebrations without the Holiday — Asha at Meta Mom shares several ways to celebrate the winter holidays without focusing on religious traditions. (@metamomma)
• Celebrating the Journey We Have Traveled Together — Acacia at Be Present enjoys the chance to draw closer to her family during the Christmas holiday.
• Celebrating Motherhood — Do you celebrate the day you became a mother? Dionna at Code Name: Mama offers some ideas for traditions to mark your passage into motherhood. (@CodeNameMama)
• Celebrate! Winter Traditions Brought Home. — At True Confessions of a Real Mommy, TrueRealMommy and her family are celebrating many different religions and traditions this month. Stop by to see their schedule of events. (@TrueRealMommy)
• "Always Ready", Holiday Style — Amy at Toddler In Tow discovered that it's not the traditions themselves, but the emotional experience behind them that makes them special.