Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1140 - 5 Ways to Make Christmas Awesome

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#1140 - 5 Ways to Make Christmas Awesome · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
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  Speaker 2: once answers.
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  Speaker 1: Now today I'm a Happy Families podcast. As we count
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  Speaker 1: down to Christmas, only two weeks to go, Kylie, two
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  Speaker 1: weeks to Christmas Eve. Today's a tenth twenty fourth is
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  Speaker 1: Christmas Eve? You've asked for the rains. See what I
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  Speaker 1: did that because Reindeer and Santa Claus. You've asked for
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  Speaker 1: the rain?
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  Speaker 2: Ha ha.
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  Speaker 1: Come on, where's your Christmas spirit? I'm looking for a
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  Speaker 1: lot more enthusied. I love it. That almost sounded like
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  Speaker 1: a recording, that sounded like Jay Ip put something in there.
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  Speaker 1: Well done. I like it. You've asked the rains. Today
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  Speaker 1: you want to talk about five ways to make Christmas awesome?
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  Speaker 1: I'm just here for the comedic relief.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm curious, what are you planning on doing to
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  Speaker 2: make Christmas awesome?
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  Speaker 1: I'm planning on being fully present. Believe you're lost.
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  Speaker 2: That is such a cop out. Have you done the Christmas.
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  Speaker 1: Shopping as per not so this year. We've decided that
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  Speaker 1: we're not going to do give but as per usual.
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  Speaker 1: I would imagine that maybe two or three days prior
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  Speaker 1: to Christmas I'm going to have a great, big brain
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  Speaker 1: explosion and go on max out the credit card like
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  Speaker 1: I did last year and the year before and the
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  Speaker 1: year before, and by gifts for everybody. Even though we're
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  Speaker 1: not doing gifts, it's still kind of in the back
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  Speaker 1: of my mind that that's going to happen.
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  Speaker 2: And Apple Watch would be fine and our right.
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  Speaker 1: Max up both credit cards. By the sounds of things now,
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  Speaker 1: other than that, I'm just I'm going to be hit
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  Speaker 1: a help. I'm going to be playing with the kids,
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  Speaker 1: swimming in the pool, preparing food, cleaning up food, and
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  Speaker 1: just being present, making sure that the air conditioners working.
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  Speaker 1: The windows are all closed so that we can stay nice.
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  Speaker 2: And you said the windows are all clean.
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  Speaker 1: Close Five ways to make Christmas awesome. You're in charge
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  Speaker 1: of this one.
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  Speaker 2: Tip Number one, Focus on time together, not st there
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  Speaker 2: we go, Yes to drag mats, the credit card out.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, but I said that I was going to focus
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  Speaker 1: on just being present. I had that one right. I
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  Speaker 1: had that one right. Just like dollars of the currency
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  Speaker 1: of the economy, connection is the currency of our relationships.
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  Speaker 2: I've watched so many times in families there is so
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  Speaker 2: much emphasis on making sure the decorations are right, and
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  Speaker 2: all the food and festivities that go with it, and
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  Speaker 2: by the end of it all Mum is exhausted. She's
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  Speaker 2: been in the kitchen for days, she's been decorating and
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  Speaker 2: wrapping in all the bits and pieces, and she doesn't
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  Speaker 2: get to enjoy it, and therefore no one gets to
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  Speaker 2: enjoy it, really because there's just so much angst and
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  Speaker 2: exhaustion wrapped around it.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm a really big believer in all in. This
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  Speaker 1: is something that we talk about from time to time
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  Speaker 1: on the pod, probably not enough quite honestly. And all
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  Speaker 1: in is literally this thing where at the end of
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  Speaker 1: dinner or at the end of a meal, I say,
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  Speaker 1: all right, everyone, it's all in, and literally everyone comes
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  Speaker 1: into the kitchen and we all work together on getting
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  Speaker 1: stuff done. When we work together as a team, we
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  Speaker 1: enjoy it more, we get we're more productive, more efficient,
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  Speaker 1: and we just get to be in each other's presence.
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  Speaker 1: So when it comes to the rigmarole of the cooking
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  Speaker 1: and cleaning and the hassle sort of stuff, I would
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  Speaker 1: encourage an all in approach. I think that's going to
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  Speaker 1: work better for everybody. And back to your point, can
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  Speaker 1: spell love time? Connection. Connection is about feeling seen, hurd
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  Speaker 1: and valued, and so if you can make yourself available
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  Speaker 1: for that and spend less time on I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: individual and selfish pursuits, you're going to have a great day.
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  Speaker 1: I love it. That's number one.
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  Speaker 2: Number two. Instead of focusing on gifts and spending lots
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  Speaker 2: of money that we don't all really have.
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  Speaker 1: Right absolutely, that's why we use credit cards.
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  Speaker 2: Why not make a game out of the gift giving process.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody enjoys giving a gift, yeah yeah, but let's have
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  Speaker 2: some fun with it. Over the years, we've done a
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  Speaker 2: whole heap of different ways of doing things.
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  Speaker 1: Are you going to share some of the fun games.
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  Speaker 2: But the one that we love the most is the
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  Speaker 2: White Elephant.
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  Speaker 1: One love this.
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  Speaker 2: You can do this in so many different ways. We've
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  Speaker 2: done it where it's a two dollar gift from the
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  Speaker 2: junk stop and everybody's got to try and find the
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  Speaker 2: best gift to give a two dollars. It could be
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  Speaker 2: that you're not actually allowed to spend any money at.
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  Speaker 1: All, so it's going to be a homemade sort of thing.
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  Speaker 2: It could be a homemade US, but it could be
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  Speaker 2: something from home.
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  Speaker 1: How many people have every gifting.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, how many people have things in their cupboard that
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  Speaker 2: they've been gifted or they've brought to give to someone
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  Speaker 2: and haven't done it. You've spent the money, but it's
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  Speaker 2: sitting there being completely underutilized.
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  Speaker 1: And on the weekend just gone, we had a fifty
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  Speaker 1: dollars limit and so everyone showed up with some really
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  Speaker 1: cool gifts. And so for people who are not familiar
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  Speaker 1: with what we're describing here, you sit down with the
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  Speaker 1: family whoever's involved.
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  Speaker 2: So sometimes everybody only brings one gift.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you bring one gift each. So with my extended
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  Speaker 1: family for our big family Christmas weekend that we've just had,
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  Speaker 1: how many people that they're like, I know, twenty eight
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  Speaker 1: people in the circle? Like it was a little bit excessive,
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  Speaker 1: it was probably a little bit too big. But essentially
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  Speaker 1: you pull something out of the sack. You don't know
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  Speaker 1: what it is.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody gets a number first. You have to pick a
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  Speaker 2: number out of a hat. Yes, and whoever gets number one,
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  Speaker 2: they get first choice. But essentially you're looking blindly out
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  Speaker 2: of a sack, reach twenty eight present.
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  Speaker 1: Pull a gift out, you own a side, and then
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  Speaker 1: the next that's it. You're number one. But then number
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  Speaker 1: two they reach in and when they open theirs, they've
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  Speaker 1: got the choice of either keeping what they've opened, or
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  Speaker 1: they look at what you've got and they say, actually,
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  Speaker 1: I want that one, and you've got to swap.
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  Speaker 2: So with twenty eight people, there are a lot of gifts,
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  Speaker 2: and the only rule you need to remember is that
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  Speaker 2: when you open your gift, that is the only time
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  Speaker 2: you get to exchange. You get to steal from somebody else.
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  Speaker 1: And it makes it really fun. If you've got a
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  Speaker 1: gift that you think other people are going to want,
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  Speaker 1: you just don't let everyone see it. Like you open it,
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  Speaker 1: everyone gets to see it, but then you hide it
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  Speaker 1: behind your back or whatever, and so that way, by
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  Speaker 1: the time if the next couple of people don't ask
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  Speaker 1: for it, by the time you get to like number
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  Speaker 1: twelve and number fourteen, it's been completely forgot. They've forgotten
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  Speaker 1: about it, so you get to keep that one. And
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  Speaker 1: so it's just it's lots of fun. There's lots and
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  Speaker 1: lots of laughter. And it works just as well with
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  Speaker 1: like a block of chocolate and a four dollars or
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  Speaker 1: five dollars spending limit as it does with a a
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  Speaker 1: slightly more expensive spending limit, like it's a really cheap.
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  Speaker 2: The very top. First time I played this, yeah, I
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  Speaker 2: would have been about eighteen, and it literally was a
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  Speaker 2: no spend find something around the house. We had people
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  Speaker 2: who brought like an old rugby football with the bladder
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  Speaker 2: had been completely popped inside it, and yet that was
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  Speaker 2: the thing that everyone wanted. Or one of those sun
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  Speaker 2: visors that literally goes around the whole of your head.
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  Speaker 2: But it's just a visor, like bright pink thing, and
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  Speaker 2: again they wanted to fight over that. Like just these
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  Speaker 2: it's just fun crazy things.
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  Speaker 1: It's just fun.
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  Speaker 2: But it's taking the emphasis off the gift and just
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  Speaker 2: the concept of spending time together and with an element
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  Speaker 2: of fun.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so number one, it's all about time and presence.
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  Speaker 2: Number two, take away the emphasis of gifts, expensive gifts
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  Speaker 2: and just have a game associated with gift giving.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I just remembered. One of our other favorite games
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  Speaker 1: is the one where everyone has a gift and you
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  Speaker 1: roll the dice and if you roll a seven or
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  Speaker 1: an eleven, so you've got to die. If you roll
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  Speaker 1: with seven or eleven, you get to swap gifts with
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  Speaker 1: somebody else. I can't remember how that one ends.
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  Speaker 2: The only way you're allowed to swap a gift is
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  Speaker 2: if you remember who has what gift. So you roll
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  Speaker 2: a seven or an eleven because there's two dice being rolled,
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  Speaker 2: and I say, justin, I want your boost bar for instance, right,
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  Speaker 2: and you don't have the boost bar, so why don't
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  Speaker 2: get the boost bar?
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  Speaker 1: Okay? Then you keep on going around. Everyone rolls there
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  Speaker 1: seven to elevens until all the gifts given in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of gone. Yes, yeah, okay, So that's fun one
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  Speaker 1: as well. What's number three?
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  Speaker 2: Number three is creating Christmas Eve traditions. I was actually
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  Speaker 2: reading my journal from the very early days and I
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  Speaker 2: found a tradition that we've stopped doing that we did
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  Speaker 2: in the early days together. It actually came out of
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  Speaker 2: a necessity because you and I were really impatient and
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  Speaker 2: we couldn't wait to open our gifts. But you and
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  Speaker 2: I would open our gifts on Christmas Eve. And the
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  Speaker 2: reason part of the reason we started it was because
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  Speaker 2: we were impatient. We were so excited to share our
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  Speaker 2: gifts with each other, as opposed to not being patient
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  Speaker 2: in waiting to receive your gift. It was that we
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  Speaker 2: were so excited to give our gifts to each other.
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  Speaker 2: But number two. It meant that we number one had
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  Speaker 2: time to ourselves to do that uninterrupted time. But secondly,
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  Speaker 2: on Christmas Day, we could focus on the joy that
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  Speaker 2: the kids were experiencing instead of having the additional of us.
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  Speaker 2: So that was a tradition that we did that we
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  Speaker 2: might pick that up again.
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  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, that sounds fun, except we're not doing
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  Speaker 1: gifts this year.
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  Speaker 2: There are plenty of ways to do gifts, okay, just
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  Speaker 2: saying all right, but the one that we've done for
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  Speaker 2: years now and is just hands down an absolute treat
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  Speaker 2: because this affords us to have that time together as
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  Speaker 2: a couple, is that we give the kids a new
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  Speaker 2: book for Christmas on Christmas Eve with a block of chocolate,
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  Speaker 2: their favorite chocolate, and we send them off to bed early.
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  Speaker 2: This is their favorite thing to do because for the
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  Speaker 2: very first time all year, they are given free reign.
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  Speaker 2: They can eat that chocolate all up if they want,
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  Speaker 2: and they can read for as long as they want.
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  Speaker 2: The only rule is that are allowed to come out
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  Speaker 2: of their own Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So we got that idea from the Icelandic tradition that's
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  Speaker 1: known as jola boca flood, which means I'm sure it's
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: not how you say I reckon, they said, Joel Block.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry if I just got the accent all wrong there,
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  Speaker 1: which basically means the book flood. And that's an Icelandic
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  Speaker 1: tradition on Christmas Eve. The books come out, the chocolate
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  Speaker 1: comes out, and everyone retires to their room and reads,
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  Speaker 1: which I really love. But it's kind of a bit
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  Speaker 1: anti social. But the point here is Christmas Eve traditions.
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  Speaker 1: Christmas Eve traditions will make Christmas awesome, is what you're saying.
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  Speaker 1: There are five ways to make Christmas awesome. Our time
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  Speaker 1: is almost up. You've got another two for us. What's
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  Speaker 1: number four?
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  Speaker 2: Find people who are less fortunate that you can serve.
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  Speaker 2: This can be so many different ways. A family that's
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  Speaker 2: struggling and inviting them over for Christmas dinner maybe, Or
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  Speaker 2: maybe it's joining the local toy drive and the kids
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  Speaker 2: donate some of their old toys, or they work extra
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  Speaker 2: jobs around the house so that they can save money
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  Speaker 2: so that they can purchase toys for children less fortunate.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe it's doing food pantry donations. Maybe it's I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: There's so many different things you can do. Maybe it's
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  Speaker 2: finding a local giving machine where you can donate to
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  Speaker 2: local charities. There are so many different things that you
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  Speaker 2: can do it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm an ambassador for the giving machines as well, just saying.
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  Speaker 2: That takes the focus away from receiving and puts the
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  Speaker 2: focus on giving to those who are in there.
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  Speaker 1: And we've done this over the years and it's always delightful.
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  Speaker 1: What is your fifth and final way to make Christmas
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  Speaker 1: awesome in twenty twenty four?
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  Speaker 2: Number five? This can be as complicated or as easy
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  Speaker 2: as you want it to be. But host a neighborhood
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  Speaker 2: pop in. Whether it's doing a early morning breakfast, or
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: whether they just come over for a cold drink at
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, or you go ahead and
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  Speaker 2: put a barbecue on and everybody a potlark. I think
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  Speaker 2: there is so much joy that can be had when
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  Speaker 2: we bring the community together.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we did it last year and I just loved it.
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  Speaker 1: I know we haven't even talked about it for this year,
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  Speaker 1: but you're saying it is making me want to do
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  Speaker 1: it again this year.
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  Speaker 2: And if that all seems way too much, you just
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  Speaker 2: don't think you can you can do that. Don't even
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: have it in your home close the street of have
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: it on your front front lawn.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're lucky enough to be in their cul
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  Speaker 1: de sac or something like that. But I mean, it's
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: not that hard to throw some buns in the oven
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  Speaker 1: and chuck some bacon and eggs on the grill and.
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  Speaker 2: Give the neighbors an assignment to do.
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  Speaker 1: A brunch, tell someone to bring the coffee machine and
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: they can look after the coffees or whatever. It's fun.
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  Speaker 1: It's fun to get together with your neighbors. I reckon
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  Speaker 1: we should do it this year. You're looking at me
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: like we still need to discuss that. I shouldn't have
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: brought that up on the podcast. I'm sorry if any
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  Speaker 1: of our neighbors are listening.
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  Speaker 2: If you can't do that, go caroling. We went caroling
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  Speaker 2: last year as well, and I was blown away at
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  Speaker 2: how many people Number one couldn't remember the last time
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  Speaker 2: they'd been caroled too, if ever, or number two, just
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: the joy that our very imperfectly sung songs brought to
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  Speaker 2: people's eyes and hearts as we shared our love and
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  Speaker 2: joy of Christmas.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you've suck an extra one in. That's six ways
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  Speaker 1: to make Christmas awesome. We will jop those down in
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the show notes in case you would like to have
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: the list and talk to your family about how you
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: could do some of that stuff. It really does make
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Christmas meaningful when you create these traditions and spend the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: time and effort to become involved and build those relationships. Kylie,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: thanks for taking over the podcast today. The Happy Family's
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: podcast is produced by Justin Rouland from Bridge Media. Only
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: a couple more episodes of Happy Families podcasts for the
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: year to go. Tomorrow on the pod, I'm sharing with
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you the best Christmas story, well, well the one that
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I love just so very much. I can't wait to
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: share that with you tomorrow. And on Thursday, we have
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: a look at our favorite books of the year. In
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: case you're looking for a last minute gift idea for someone,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: it'll be our book Club Chrismus edition on the Happy
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Families podcast. If you like more info about making your
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: family happy, you can get it all on Happy families
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: dot com dot a You