Holidays are so much fun as a parent! Aside from our own happiness in the celebrations, the excitement and delight of our kids makes it so much better. Honestly, I’d do away with most of the effort for the holidays if I didn’t enjoy the kids’ enjoyment so much.
Parenting at holidays is a lot of work! All of the magic of the decorations and treats and surprises and costumes and feasts is mostly up to the parents to produce. And when you have a big family, that work is multiplied! When I think of all the presents we’ve wrapped for each other and our 10 kids for Christmas and birthdays over the years, I’m sure we’re expert gift wrappers by now. (Maybe we could start a present wrapping business, Honey.😉)
But what’s it all for? What do the holidays mean? Back when people started these holidays, it was to help their families and friends remember something they felt was important. Meaningful holidays are more than just decorations and extra treats. Holidays for kids should have a special meaning.
Holidays all have a meaning
In March this year, #6 asked me about St. Patrick’s day. Aside from it being linked to Ireland, I really didn’t know what it was about. Lucky for me there’s the internet, so we looked it up. It turns out St. Patrick was a missionary in Ireland, who used the 3 leaf clover to teach about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Did you know that’s why we wear clovers for St. Patrick’s day?
We’ve learned about a few other holidays this year in homeschool as we’ve been studying cultures. We learned about the Mexican Day of the Dead. For this holiday families set out pictures of their deceased loved ones, and visit graveyards with bread and other foods for their loved ones who’ve died. They paint their faces to look like skulls, and eat skull goodies. They believe that on these 2 days their deceased loved ones can visit them. This seems to be a holiday full of traditions to help them remember. This has stayed a meaningful holiday over the years.
Another foreign holiday we studied is the Brazilian Carnaval. Carnaval means a meat feast which was originally held before the 40 day Christian Lent, a time where they give up meat or something else meaningful. This 40 day “fast” is to remind them of the 40 days that Jesus fasted. The way it’s celebrated today is with a week full of people in the streets with costumes, parades, dancing, and lots of food. This holiday seems to have lost most of its meaning over time.
The Laternenfest, which means lantern festival, is in honor of St. Martin of Germany. He had been a soldier who converted to Christianity. He went about giving to all the poor he came across. On one occasion he’d given almost all he had when he came across a man poorly clothed in the cold. St. Martin took off his cloak and cut it in half to give half to the poor man. To honor his memory the children make lanterns and follow a man on a horse. They also make a sweet bread in a man shape for a treat. In some places the children go door to door asking for treats. This is a holiday for kids to enjoy, and hopefully it still reminds them of something important.
What do holidays mean for our us?
In our parenting, there are some holidays that are more important to us that we make more effort to keep as meaningful holidays.
Birthdays are very special holidays for kids at our house, as we want our children to know how much they mean to us. We let the birthday person pick a special dinner and dessert. We watch the video we made of the day they were born. It’s always fun to see how much all the kids have grown, comparing them to our home videos. It always feels special to remember the happy day they joined our family. We have often taken turns telling our birthday kid something we love about them. The presents we give are carefully selected to go with their likes and personalities. We want the whole day to say, “We love you!”
With so many people in our family, we have a lot of meaningful holidays. Just in the past 6 weeks we’ve celebrated Thanksgiving, 2 birthdays and Christmas. This next week we have New Years and another birthday to celebrate! Whew!
Christmas is our biggest celebration of the year. It’s been simplified a lot as we’ve added birthdays and school performances to our December. We’ve picked carefully what traditions to keep and which ones to let go of to keep the meaning there, because that’s important to us.
Our Christmas decorations come out at the beginning of December, each with a meaning to remind us what Christmas is about. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, born in a miraculous way under very humble conditions to become the Savior of the world. The evergreen tree reminds us of the life we gain because of His resurrection. The lights and stars remind us of the new star that shown the night He was born. The angels remind us of the angels that told the shepherds He was born and then sang for joy. The gifts remind us of the gifts the wise men brought Him.
And what of Santa Claus? Well, this story and tradition started as a celebration of St. Nicholas Day. St. Nicholas was said to have thrown money down a chimney that landed in stocking that were hanging to dry in the fireplace. This money was to help some sisters that didn’t have money for a dowry to be able to get married. It’s interesting to see how this story has evolved with time and different cultures, and here in the states it’s been merged with Christmas. (More thoughts on Cultures.)
Christmas is more than just a holiday for kids as it has lots of layers and history to make it a meaningful holiday. If it’s one of your holidays, make sure your kids know what it means to you.
Make your holidays meaningful
As parents we get to decide how our families celebrate. How do your holidays go? Is it the parents slaving away for the kids to have a good time? Is the whole family enjoying the celebration? Are we taking it a step further to remember what we’re celebrating? In everything we do we’re teaching our children, whether we see it or not. I hope we can think about what we’re celebrating and help our families remember what they’re all about.
Thanks for reading my blog. If you liked it, share it. I hope you’re enjoying your adventure.
