Busy, Busy Days...or Not?

This holiday season brings about commitments and traditions that need to be done which can generally bring about lots of stress and very little downtime. Make sure that you are taking time for yourself and your family. Sometimes you need to look at the things on your plate and decide if they really are benefiting your family, if you are really enjoying what you are doing or if you are doing these things just because it is what you have always done? Over the last few years we have revamped our holiday traditions, to only include the things that we really enjoy doing. I hear so many stories of parents doing things because the kids like it or even vice versa - my grandmother and her sisters used to make all the pies from scratch and while all the cousins enjoyed eating them, the girls were forced to help make those pies, while the boys got to play outside or watch TV, I loved my grandmother and have some of my favorite memories baking with her, but I ~ and a few of my female cousins ~ have so many memories of despising those baking days! We wanted to play, we wanted to have snowball fights, we wanted to sit and watch TV, but the tradition was that the girls bake those pies while the boys could do, well, whatever they wanted to. While I know that these days most parents would have the boys in the kitchen with them as well as the girls or would be out buying the pies, it is more the point that sometimes we impress antiquated traditions on our kids that they just really have no interest in. SO remember to take time to discuss your family traditions, be sure that you are really enjoying what you are doing and each other so that you can all have a truly Happy Holidays!!!