Holiday Traditions to Celebrate with Family This Year

This holiday season, why not begin a new tradition with your family, or revive an old one? The holidays are the perfect time to bring everyone together for a fun family activity that you can return to year after year. From sledding and holiday movie marathons to volunteer work and cooking, here are some of our choices for our favorite holiday traditions.

1. Host a Holiday Movie Marathon: There is a wide range of holiday-themed movies available on most streaming services, as well as on cable television and in physical formats like DVDs. Bring your family together by hosting a marathon of your favorite holiday movies. Allow each family member to suggest one movie to watch and play them in the background while you prepare hot cocoa, hang holiday decorations or wrap presents together.

2. See Holiday Lights: The holiday season is the perfect time to decorate, and many households do. However, some households decorate more than others - you can frequently find rows of brilliantly decorated houses during the holiday season that you and your family can drive past and appreciate. You can even make games out of it, asking your family to look for particular things during the trip. Who will be the first to spot a reindeer, or a candy cane?

3. Give Back This Season with Kindness: Show your children the joys of being kind by engaging in a volunteer activity that allows your family to give back to your community. This can mean anything from shopping locally to volunteering at a local soup kitchen. The activity itself is up to you and your family, but embracing the tradition of spreading cheer and kindness can be an excellent way to encourage your children to show kindness in the future.

4. Go Sledding with the Whole Family: Sledding and sleigh-riding are favorite activities of many children during the holiday season. While you might not always have actual snowy hills available to you, there are many locations that will recreate them during the holiday season. Going sledding is a wonderful way to get in touch with the winter season and remind yourself what it's like to be a kid.

5. Cook Holiday Foods Together: Cooking is an activity that the entire family can enjoy. With a variety of delicious recipes available for you to try, you can choose the dish that your whole family will love - and then recruit them into the kitchen to help make it. This is a wonderful way to show children the joy of cooking and get them involved in a family activity where they'll be able to see the fruits of their labor.

6. Give the Entire Family a Gift: Another excellent tradition is to purchase a present that the entire family can use and enjoy. This could be something extravagant like a chocolate fountain, or something more practical like a new television set. You also might want to consider purchasing a new clock. A beautiful clock can become a family heirloom that will be passed down for generations.

These are just a few traditions that you might be interested in participating in with your family this year. Part of creating a family tradition is discovering what you and your family enjoy doing together, so try different things and find out which traditions work best for you!