With the holidays just around the corner, it’s a good time to have a plan for reducing the feelings of stress and overwhelm that are often a part of the holiday season despite our best efforts otherwise. Here are six tips that can help you formulate a plan to ensure that the whole family can enjoy the holidays to their fullest.
Determine to take time for the little moments. A holiday-themed or other favorite book before nap or bedtime. A dance around the kitchen while the pasta cooks. A drive through the neighborhood to see all the lights. A cup of homemade hot chocolate.
Choose to establish one new tradition or special holiday ritual for your family. Perhaps it’s attending a local kid-friendly holiday concert. Or maybe you might choose to make or buy an Advent Calendar to help you count down the days. With older children, you might opt for taking cookies to an elderly shut-in.
Enjoy the music of the season. Take all of your favorite Kindermusik-style activities right into the holidays! Move-along, play-along, dance-along, and sing-along to all of your holiday favorites. You might even find some new musical inspiration for the holidays at Kindermusik’s music download site, play.kindermusik.com.
Keep your daily routines as consistent as possible. While everyone in the house benefits from a predictable routine, young children especially need the familiar predictability of their regular schedule to keep them from falling apart or feeling out of sorts.
Decide ahead of time to keep things simple. It’s easy to let all the activities, excitement, and glitz of the holidays take over to the point of overwhelm. Deciding in advance to keep things simple (i.e., maybe one tree instead of two, or just one or two parties, or buying goodies to give instead of making them all) can really keep the joy in the season.
Focus on people more than expectations. After all, it’s the love of those special people around us that make the holidays matter the most. Even when we know that, it is still easy to allow ourselves to be let down by unrealistic or unmet expectations when really it’s all about just being present in the moment and realizing that being together can be one of the best gifts of all.
Author’s note: I have to say that one of the things I love most about Kindermusik is that it truly gives parents and children the time and the tools in class and at home to just be together and enjoy these precious early years. We’d love to have you come visit one of our Kindermusik classes here at one of our Piano Central Studios locations so you can see for yourself just how beneficial Kindermusik can be for your young child. We are confident that you’ll find Kindermusik to be a very special experience for you and your child – together time you will treasure all year long.
