2. Turn off all your technology. You should not be surfing the Internet or working on your latest project. Don't let your tablet distract you or pick up your cell phone to play games in the slow moments. Take time today to spend with your family. If nothing is happening, then enjoy the fact that nothing is happening. Revel in the silence. How often do you get the chance to enjoy a moment of peace. We spend the rest of the year surrounded by noise and technology and the need to get things done quickly. Today is a day to slow down, enjoy, and spend time with family and friends.
3. Start a new tradition. If you find yourself in one of those moments where no one is doing anything, where everybody is sitting in silence, think about what you can do together. There are all kinds of things you can do around the house. Make Christmas a family game night. Play a game that will take hours to play. Watch a movie. In fact Watch a specific movie. Maybe you're like me and like Star Wars. Watch the entire trilogy on Christmas Day. You can also make ornaments or build gingerbread houses or start a campfire in your fire pit out side in the backyard. Just find something that will peak everybody's interest and do it together.
4. Start an annual Christmas thoughts book. Buy a composition book that you can write in, that you cannot rip pages out of. Get everybody in your household to write their Christmas thoughts on one page each. Then every year you bring out this book and you have them do it again. You will find it interesting how things change when you read back to previous years. Make sure what you write is all positive thoughts. Write things about what is going on in your life and what you hope for in the future. After 10 or 20 years of writing in this book you will find all kinds of interesting facts about yourself and about your family. You will get to watch your kids grow up as they change the way they think and dream of new dreams.
5. Wear your Christmas Footy pajamas. Imagine everyone in the family having a pair of these pajamas. Everybody wakes up and opens presents in their cozy footies. We all eat breakfast in these pajamas. It might even be fun to wear these pajamas all day long. Invite the rest of your family to come over wearing their's. Make it a pajama day, a Christmas pajama day.
6. Reconnect with someone you haven't spoken to in a long time. We all have friends we've lost contact with over the years. Many of them have been friends for decades. We only talk to them once or twice a year and Christmas is one of those times we can take to catch up with those friends. Even if we don't get around to speaking to them again until their birthday or Easter, Christmas should be one of those moments where we remember those who have touched our lives in some way. You might take the opportunity to make amends with someone you've grown apart from. You might track down that high school best friend you haven't spoken to since graduation. Take a moment give them a call and wish them a happy new year and a Merry Christmas. Let them know you were thinking about them.
7. Read the Christmas Story. Open your Bible and read the chapter about the birth of Christ. Reflect on it. Talk about it or just sit in silence and stare into the lights on the tree as you relive the journey and emotions of the three wise men traveling to see the Son of God. We would not have Christmas as we know it without the birth of Jesus. If you don't believe in the story of Christ, then learn about it and understand what your Christian friends are celebrating. Use it as a way to bring up what you believe.
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