You’re ready for a new year, a new start! Get the year off to a bang with one or more of our New Year activities. Each of these suggestions helps you make the transition with optimism and purpose. Here’s to the best year yet!
Family Rituals:
- Make a Family Vision Board. Sit down with your children and talk about what you all want for the new year. Suggest the kids think about their personal goals plus the ones you’d like to reach as a family. Is this the year you’d like to make that much-anticipated trip to Hawaii? Or, how about something closer to home like having dinner 4 nights a week as a family? Come up with 5 or 6 ideas and then give the kids magazines to flip through. Let them tear out pictures or drawings that illustrate the goals you have chosen as a family. Paste the photos on a 11 x 17 (or any size cardboard that you can easily frame) and have the children decorate the collage. Either frame the vision board or hang as is in a prominent place in your home as a reminder of what you want for the year.
- Make space in your life. The first few days of a new year are the perfect time to clear out clutter. Give each family member a large box and have them fill it with items that they no longer need. Make it a game for the kids by challenging them to find 10 items to dispose of and then up the ante to 15 if they succeed. Once everyone has their box filled, go through the items and sort. Toss the truly unusable stuff and then either donate the rest or sell items that might have value. Any money you make can go into a family account that gets used for a special activity chosen by all.
- Clean up! Now that you’ve gotten some of the clutter out of the house, it’s time to give it a deep clean. Don’t wait for spring to clean, take a day and do it now. You’ll start the year with a fresh perspective and a clean house! Give the children age-appropriate chores and be sure to have a fun activity planned for the end of the day.
Personal Rituals:
- Pick a word for the year. Spend a quiet hour thinking about the year to come and how you’d like it to unfold. If you journal, this is a great time to put your thoughts to paper. Look back over what you’ve written to see if one word jumps out at you. If you’re thinking that this is the year to mend a fractured relationship, spend more time with your friends, and get involved in an activity or two, your word might be “connection.” Find the pattern in what you’d like to see for your year and distill it down to one word. Once you have your word, find a way to incorporate a visual reminder of it into your life. Print it out and frame it to hang in your office, add it to a photo that you use as a screensaver–get creative! When you find yourself floundering, recommit to your word and get yourself back on track.
- Resolve to look for ways to give. Resolve this year that you will look for ways to give back–to your family, to friends, to strangers. Spend some time in the first few days of the year thinking about ways you can give of your self, your time, your money and then find a way to remind yourself that it’s a priority for you this year. If you haven’t been volunteering, look for ways to do that. You don’t have to give hours of your time on a consistent basis. There are many organizations with annual events that only need volunteers for a few hours at a time. Or, pick an organization like Meals on Wheels that allows you to volunteer for just an hour or two per week. Your giving doesn’t have to be only about volunteering, look for small ways to add to someone’s day: let another car cut in during a busy commute, put a sweet note in your child’s lunch box, bring a cup of coffee back for a busy co-worker.
- Develop an attitude of gratitude. Let this year be the year you develop a gratitude practice. It’s a simple practice with great rewards–just jot down a few things you are grateful for each day. You don’t need to only focus on the big things, this is your chance to pay attention to the little things that happen every day and make life brighter. A perfectly brewed cup of tea, a stranger holding open the door, the sun streaming through the window–these are the little joys that make each day brighter. Resolve to notice them and write them down. With consistent practice, your gratitude will increase and your joy will increase.
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