Finding The “Calm & Bright” This Holiday Season

The 2020 holiday season is upon us and it’s been a tough year. Friends are suffering from Covid-related illness — even the heartbreaking loss of family and friends — quarantine, virtual school & work, and pandemic safety. Many of us are navigating this crazy time with kids, elderly parents, or our own at-risk circumstances. Also, keeping businesses afloat, jobs intact, and larger communities safe.  Add all of the regular and not-so-regular stresses, anxieties, depression, loneliness…the holidays can be a respite for some and a dreaded, sad time for others. 

I’ve been thinking about this holiday season a lot and how it will be different this year. But, also, how I can still make it special, calming…& magical. Today, I’m sharing some of my own ideas for making this unique holiday season special AND I’ve reached out to friends who have shared how they are aiming to make this holiday season magical (or just bearable) for their families and themselves.

Hopefully, these will give you an idea or two — or just a sigh of relief that we’re all in this together. Also, I highly recommend you follow some (or ALL) of these women. They are friends who elevate me and challenge me — some from my in-person life, some online, some through work or kids.  There are business owners, activists, artists, creators, thinkers, writers — all are mothers and friends who are sharing how they will attempt to rise & relax this season.

Celebrate Online

Thank goodness for Zoom, Skype & Facetime! Here are some creative ways to take advantage of technology this holiday season with friends & family.

• Keep the traditions you currently have as much as possible (with kids) and be super intentional about keeping as much normalcy as you can. For example, every year we throw a small Elf movie watching party and have a few family members over. Instead of canceling, we’ll do this virtually this year. – Olivia Omega Wallace @oliviaomega
• My husband, kids and I live in Massachusetts and are staying home for Thanksgiving but we have a scheduled time for a video call with family in SC and NY. We’ll be playing virtual games! I’m currently researching Monopoly online, bingo, and family trivia options using an app like Kahoot. We’ll be sure to save it and make a memento out of it. – Quiana Agbai @harlemlovebirds
• We will video ourselves reading our favorite holiday books to send to my young nephew since we cannot travel to see him this year. -Jen Clark @lokitwinsmama
• In our house, we will be having a Zoom Thanksgiving dinner followed by a Netflix watching party with our cousins and grandparents.  – Kirsten Maxwell @kidsareatrip
• Ask grandparents to prepare stories from their lives as kids — maybe send them some prompts to get started (What is a memorable gift you got for Christmas/Hanukkah as a child? Where did you celebrate Thanksgiving growing up? Tell us the story of a traditional holiday food we eat. What is your favorite holiday movie and why?) Then, set up a Zoom or facetime to share the stories with their grandkids. 

Cook & Feast Together

Breaking bread with your immediate family in fun ways is always a holiday winner.

• Pick out a holiday cookbook and try several recipes with your kids — let them pick them out. Document and rate all of the recipes in the margins of the book for a fun keepsake.
• My brother makes my oldest daughter’s favorite mashed potatoes and homemade mac & cheese for Thanksgiving. This year — since we will be apart for the first time since we can remember — he is ordering her all of the ingredients for these two dishes and they will cook them together over Zoom on Thanksgiving morning. This would be fun to do with a grandparent’s famous pie recipe or a family favorite latka recipe…or cookies. 
• For my son’s birthday in October, I made a big crockpot of hot chocolate and a sweets charcuterie board with marshmallows and things. The kids loved it and I plan to do one for winter too! – Anna Rice @minalovesbows
• For us, in past years, we always traveled to visit family for Thanksgiving and Christmas so part of what I hope makes the holiday special this year is preparing meals and celebrating in our own home. We are also planning on doing at least one themed dinner wherein each of us cooks a course based on that theme. – Tamara Gruber @we3travel
• Try & prepare holiday foods from other cultures and traditions than your own.

Work on Projects Together

Keep the kids busy with projects and crafts & make it fun and meaningful.

• Becca Stevens at Thistle Farms is sharing gift-giving crafts that the whole family can do together. -Becca Stevens @beccastevens
• For Halloween, I made gift bags full of everyone’s favorite snacks and candies, and drinks. Then put them all in a giant box. The whole family went on a scavenger hunt together around the house to find it. I think this would be a fun thing for the winter holidays too. -Anna Rice @minalovesbows
• One of our favorite traditions that we have done through the years is gifting “The Twelve Days of Christmas” to a couple of other families. I think it would still work with Covid depending on the family’s comfort level with dropping things off. We start on December 13th and drop off one small gift for the first day of Christmas. The next day we drop off two small gifts and so on. Nothing expensive or fancy — some gifts we’ve done include hot chocolate mix, popcorn packets, chips & salsa, oranges, coloring books, a Christmas banner, & cozy socks. We leave the gift on the family’s doorstep, ring the bell, and run. This is something I did as a kid with my family and it’s been fun to continue the tradition with my kids. -Lisa Andrews @thistraveltribe
• My whole family will participate in a photo challenge with phones and cameras that can be done over the break. They have a simple theme each week (i.e. comfort food, magic, tradition, light) and then they will be asked to put their pictures into a PowerPoint and store it on Google docs so my whole family has access to them. – Jen Clark @lokitwinsmama

Get Outside

Challenge yourself to bundle up and #optoutside this holiday season.

• We will bundle up as much as possible and bring along hot cocoa to see the outside lights. -Kirsten Maxwell @kidsareatrip
• We will be having lots of outside bonfires & also focusing on gifts that will allow us to be outside: warm boots, cross country skis, sleds. -Jen Clark @lokitwinsmama
• Find outside events in your area that practice safe social distancing. Holiday markets, light shows, ice skating & more.

Find the Simple Magic

Just by slowing down, we can find some of the magic.

• We love to use our Advent of Kindness, though it will need some Covid edits this year!
• We have a huge stack of books that we pull out just for the holidays. Also, we decorated on November 2 and got new Christmas jammies early! Basically, we started everything we normally do in December in November! I think in 2020, you just surround yourself and your family with magic wherever you can find it! – Jen Kane @heyjenkane
• Finding ways to connect in a safe way during the holidays will be a little trickier this year. When I was a child, the magic of Christmas came to life when we “adopted a family” ahead of the holiday season and got to help pick out gifts for them based on their likes and dislikes. I felt like one of Santa’s elves. Find ways to serve in your community this year. Make holiday cards for those living in assisted living facilities or staying in hospitals. Find organizations like Miry’s list in your area where you can support a refugee family new to your community. Grab a bread starter recipe you can make as a family and give away to friends or neighbors. Our physical proximity will matter just a little less when we can engage our kids in bringing happiness and hope to those around us. We can still be close in spirit. -Nadine Fonseca @mightykindkids
• I am not the crafty mom or the room parent mom. I’m more of an “experience” mom. So I think we are just going to try and go on winter hikes in places we’ve never been, sit together and actually watch a movie (instead of coming and going), and bake one — just one — kind of cookie. Slow down, be present, and recognize that this is a unique holiday season. -Erin Naso @thehangervalet