It’s not easy to establish an ongoing holiday ritual with your kids when you have them on alternate holidays. Yes, they are ongoing, but they aren’t in an unbroken string of memories.
Single parents and their children need an unbroken thread to weave through their lives. Special holiday events guarantee good memories every year.
This year with be the third year in a row that I have treated my son and my parents to the Christmas Revels. My son started asking when the Revels would be oh, right after Halloween. They start early, in the first half of December, so we can count on this outing as a tradition that never has to skip a year.
Look for something you can do with the kids before the winter break starts and you have to start packing them up and making your own plans for a kid-free holiday. Train displays, a visit to see Santa Claus, a performance of Handel’s Messiah, a holiday sing-along: all of these make for great memories!
How do you maintain your connection over the holidays?
We make these activities part of our advent calender — my son opens an envelope every morning to find out what activity we’ll do that night. Last night we made chocolate together (that was a new one this year — he loves Willy Wonka). But we always do a drive to see holiday lights, decorate cookies, make chocolate covered pretzels, have hot cocoa, camp out in front of the fireplace, write a letter to Santa, etc… This year, we also added shopping for a toy for toys for tots. This way he’s getting the joy of spending time together, and not another piece of candy, or another tiny toy for me to step on…
Anna, what a great idea! Next year, I am definitely going to get around to wrapping our Christmas books in Christmas paper and putting them in a box… we’ll read a new one every night until Christmas eve… and end with The Night Before Christmas!