Traditions: Setting Up For Success

For children aged three to five, the holidays offer many delights — the lights, the singing, the cookies, and, yes, the presents. To keep the presents and “getting” in perspective, choose holiday traditions that convey your family’s values.  

In the Red Suit? Be clear about how you want to handle the “whole Santa thing” in your family — and let adult gift givers know what you’ve decided a few months in advance. If the excitement generated by the Santa tradition is important to you, include it. The best approach? Only talk about Santa in ways that will turn out to

Can you choose traditions? Aren’t traditions just handed down? Yes and yes. You bring traditions from your own childhood, but you need carry on only those you truly cherish. Include your preschooler in a family discussion about what your family would most like to do for the holidays. Setting realistic goals in terms of time and money can establish a season of holiday success. Trying to do too much only invites more stress. 

Manageable Activities Try these activities for everyone’s sanity — and fun.      • Baking cookies together can be a great family tradition, but you don’t have to bake all the cookies together. Let your children help you with the first few batches and save the mega-baking for after the kids go to sleep. • Schedule shopping in manageable chunks. A few hours shopping allows time for little ones to take in the holiday atmosphere before becoming cranky. • Make setting up the tree and trimming it a two-day event, so decorating will be the main event, rather than just an ending to a long day. • Designate as “adult only” the delicate ornaments that you would hate to see broken. Make sure there are plenty of ornaments for children to hang and that the ones that they made themselves get highly visible positions on the tree.  • If there is a story behind a decoration, share that with your children. If one of your holiday treasures is the music box your grandmother brought from Poland, tell your children how far it traveled and perhaps

Not only is your time limited, but so is your child’s attention span and stamina. Plan child-sized portions of holiday activities. It’s far better to have an hour of holiday fun than four hours of agony and regrets.

Nancy Olsen-Harbich is the human development specialist at Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Suffolk.