|
Counting Blessings Over the Holiday
Season
by
Dr. Sonja Benson
December brings us right into a heavy holiday season with celebrations
for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza and New Year’s Eve. For many, holidays
seem to be a time of rushing around stores looking for "the perfect
gift" or the "right" theme for a holiday party, and sometimes becoming
more harried than happy, coping with hectic schedules and people
everywhere. At such times, it can be easy to overlook the intent behind
celebrating holidays. Materialism runs rampant in the 21st century, as
we see various companies gearing up to promote their goods and services
for the holidays sometimes as early as Halloween! Maybe it’s time to
take a breather and get back to basics.
Dr. Bill Doherty, director of the Family Social Science department of
the University of Minnesota, recommends integrating family traditions as
one way to bring the true intent of holidays back down to earth. For
some, that may be a tradition involving serving specific foods for a
holiday meal - - like lutefisk and lefsa for some of us Minnesotans.
Other traditions may include the whole family gathering for a religious
service or a quiet time of sharing memories. You can also begin to
create traditions for your family. Remember also that family can be a
family of intent, as well as a family or origin or of creation, and
close friends can factor heavily into that intended family.
Dr. Doherty shared one of his family traditions on a recent radio
program on NPR. He recommended it as another way to move toward the
spirit of giving and away from materialism. In his family, each
time someone gives another a present (be it Christmas, birthday or
other), the giver must also be prepared to give a verbal gift as well.
That verbal gift is an acknowledgment to the recipient of how she or he
has given to the family or enriched the family in some way during the
past year. We often take so little time to verbally recognize how
important people are to us and it means so much when we do. Our
blessings truly are the people in our lives which is why we get so
crazed at holiday time to celebrate them. Perhaps this holiday season,
each of you can take the time to let those important people in your life
know how much they mean through words or other nonmaterial deeds. Count
all your blessings and make it a tradition to do so every year.
Copyright
©
2006 by Sonja Benson, Ph.D.
|
