Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #414 'Tis The Season to be Cranky
Transcript
- 0:10Speaker 1: It's their Happy Families podcast.
- 0:13Speaker 2: We're a little bit more sensitive at this time of
- 0:15Speaker 2: the year as well.
- 0:16Speaker 1: Because we're so tired.
- 0:17Speaker 2: We're tired and stressed.
- 0:18Speaker 1: We're supposed to be relaxed, so none.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Of us are at our best. And now here's the
- 0:23Speaker 2: stars of our show, my mom and dad.
- 0:25Speaker 1: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson, the author of a
- 0:28Speaker 1: whole bunch of books that would be fantastic Christmas gifts.
- 0:31Speaker 2: Oh what a great idea bunch of books? Are my
- 0:34Speaker 2: favorite Christmas gift?
- 0:35Speaker 1: To give one of my books?
- 0:37Speaker 2: Yes, I love to give relationship rules because do you
- 0:39Speaker 2: know what.
- 0:40Speaker 1: No, I this is totally unscripted, by the way, but
- 0:42Speaker 1: thanks for the plug.
- 0:43Speaker 2: It's white and red, right look, and I tie it
- 0:45Speaker 2: with a beautiful white bow, and then I tuck in
- 0:49Speaker 2: a little candy cane. Yeah, red and white candy. It
- 0:52Speaker 2: just looks so good.
- 0:53Speaker 1: It looks Christmas.
- 0:54Speaker 2: It looks so good.
- 0:54Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 0:55Speaker 1: Well, Happy Families dot com dot you if you're interested
- 0:57Speaker 1: speaking of Happy Families dot com dot you on Monday night.
- 1:01Speaker 1: So every month, if you're a Happy Family's Premium member
- 1:04Speaker 1: or in fact a Happy Family's member, we include in
- 1:07Speaker 1: our memberships for you every single month a webinar about
- 1:09Speaker 1: making your family happier, because a happy family doesn't just happen.
- 1:12Speaker 1: And on Monday Night this week, we did a webinar
- 1:15Speaker 1: that might be interesting for everybody who is a little
- 1:18Speaker 1: bit stressed about relationships in laws, arties, uncles, cousins, everyone
- 1:22Speaker 1: crashing at your house or you having to go to
- 1:24Speaker 1: everyone else's house. You know, Christmas is funny. Sometimes we
- 1:27Speaker 1: struggle a little bit with our relatives throughout the year,
- 1:30Speaker 1: but we've got this romantic notion that we're supposed to
- 1:33Speaker 1: suddenly be best friends with our entire family at Christmas time,
- 1:36Speaker 1: even though we sort of struggle a bit during the year.
- 1:38Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
- 1:39Speaker 2: Do you think it's a romantic notion or do you
- 1:41Speaker 2: just think there's this in a hope in us gether
- 1:43Speaker 2: we can pull it together.
- 1:45Speaker 1: We're designed to be connected, especially to those to whom
- 1:48Speaker 1: we are biologically related. That's how we're actually designed, and
- 1:51Speaker 1: so we kind of think Christmas is a time of
- 1:53Speaker 1: coming together. It's a time of connection. It's time of
- 1:55Speaker 1: giving and healing and forgiveness and kindness and gift giving.
- 1:59Speaker 1: And so we can think, yes, this Christmas is going
- 2:01Speaker 1: to be better this year, even though we had a
- 2:03Speaker 1: horrible year with the sister in law, or with our
- 2:05Speaker 1: brother who said that unkind thing, or our mum who
- 2:09Speaker 1: continues to be by the way, I'm not talking about
- 2:11Speaker 1: your mom or my mum but continues to be insensitive
- 2:13Speaker 1: or whatever it is, the stepdad, all those sorts of things.
- 2:17Speaker 1: We kind of just have this hope that Christmas is
- 2:20Speaker 1: going to be time of togetherness and we're going to
- 2:22Speaker 1: sit in the living room and smile at each other
- 2:24Speaker 1: and talk about fond memories, eat good food, open and
- 2:27Speaker 1: give safe thank you to one another, hug and heal,
- 2:30Speaker 1: and you.
- 2:30Speaker 2: Know what, Sometimes that happens.
- 2:32Speaker 1: It does, and then.
- 2:34Speaker 2: And then January and then Boxing Day comes and you're
- 2:37Speaker 2: kind of what happened? We had this awesome day yesterday
- 2:40Speaker 2: and everything was fine, and now.
- 2:41Speaker 1: We're back to where we were sometimes anyway, we did
- 2:44Speaker 1: a webinar on Monday night that I think can be
- 2:46Speaker 1: helpful for any family that has tricky moments around Christmas
- 2:49Speaker 1: and wants to get it wants to get it better.
- 2:52Speaker 2: I'm going to give a plug to Evelyn. She does
- 2:54Speaker 2: all of our social media posts and just does such
- 2:57Speaker 2: a brilliant job. She's on fire at the moment, meant
- 3:00Speaker 2: she is, and she created these little ninja posts for
- 3:03Speaker 2: your webinar and shared some of the things that you
- 3:07Speaker 2: shared in your webinart.
- 3:08Speaker 1: Ninja posted, but there were little ninjas by the way.
- 3:10Speaker 1: We will we will repost that because it absolutely went
- 3:15Speaker 1: off on social media. I think it was one of
- 3:17Speaker 1: the most shared social posts we've ever done. Will repost it.
- 3:20Speaker 2: She needs to repost it.
- 3:21Speaker 1: Now. We're going to repost it on social so that
- 3:23Speaker 1: everyone can find it, because you've got to go back
- 3:24Speaker 1: a couple of weeks.
- 3:25Speaker 2: It's going to be there if you just go to
- 3:27Speaker 2: Instagram and you just click on your link and oh yeah, yeah,
- 3:30Speaker 2: that's fine.
- 3:30Speaker 1: It just comes straight up on Facebook as well. Anyway,
- 3:33Speaker 1: we want everybody to be able to see it again. Okay,
- 3:35Speaker 1: so there you go.
- 3:36Speaker 2: I'm not even technically zavvy and I know how to
- 3:38Speaker 2: do that.
- 3:38Speaker 1: Well, I'm the boss and I'm saying that the team
- 3:40Speaker 1: are going to put it back around.
- 3:41Speaker 2: So she's going to be cranky at you.
- 3:44Speaker 1: So let's talk about the things. There are seven things
- 3:46Speaker 1: that I've suggested in the webinar.
- 3:48Speaker 2: You know that brains can only take in two or three, right, Well.
- 3:51Speaker 1: Let's do two now and then we're really smokes five
- 3:53Speaker 1: alfter the break.
- 3:54Speaker 2: Anybody who's followed you for a long time knows that
- 3:56Speaker 2: you can't do it until or three. But anyway, the
- 3:59Speaker 2: first one was create some structure, all right. What I
- 4:02Speaker 2: love about this one is the fact that the reality
- 4:08Speaker 2: doesn't usually work out the way we want it to.
- 4:11Speaker 2: There's always something going on.
- 4:13Speaker 1: So somebody shows up late, or somebody forgets something like
- 4:17Speaker 1: I'll forget to put the roast in the oven or
- 4:19Speaker 1: something like that. Everything's cooked and sudden we're like, oh no,
- 4:21Speaker 1: we've got no meat, or whatever it might be.
- 4:23Speaker 2: So the most important thing is to have a schedule
- 4:25Speaker 2: of some sort. Communicate it with everybody what your expectations are.
- 4:28Speaker 1: Be flexible.
- 4:29Speaker 2: I don't think it has to be a minute by
- 4:30Speaker 2: minute thing. But if you would like to have lunch
- 4:33Speaker 2: at one o'clock, then it's just the house is open
- 4:36Speaker 2: from eleven. We will be eating at one.
- 4:38Speaker 1: Yeah, whether you here or not, because you might have
- 4:40Speaker 1: stuff with the in laws. You might have stuff somewhere else,
- 4:43Speaker 1: but be here in time for the one o'clock food,
- 4:46Speaker 1: otherwise you'll miss out on the food. You might also
- 4:48Speaker 1: say the general structure is everyone's going to show up,
- 4:51Speaker 1: We're going to catch up, do a bit of prep.
- 4:53Speaker 1: We'll be eating at one, and we're going to do
- 4:55Speaker 1: the family tradition stuff around presents or reading the Nativity,
- 5:00Speaker 1: a faith background or whatever it is that you do
- 5:03Speaker 1: as a family on a Christmas Day. We'll be doing
- 5:05Speaker 1: that from two, or from three or from four, so
- 5:08Speaker 1: everyone has a good idea of what the general outline
- 5:11Speaker 1: of the day is. It's an expectation setting exercise and
- 5:15Speaker 1: it takes the pressure off.
- 5:16Speaker 2: Well, there's nothing worse when you show up somewhere and
- 5:18Speaker 2: you kind of think you're going to be there for
- 5:19Speaker 2: an hour and find out five hours later, yeah.
- 5:23Speaker 1: You're still there. Pretty annoying, by the way, if you're
- 5:25Speaker 1: the host and somebody is late and things just don't
- 5:27Speaker 1: going to plan, have a couple of backup activities scheduled
- 5:30Speaker 1: or ready to go, Like we're doing a podcast about
- 5:32Speaker 1: favorite Christmas movies. Have a Christmas movie on standby, have
- 5:36Speaker 1: it ready to go, so that if the kids are
- 5:37Speaker 1: getting antsy, or maybe the kids don't play well with
- 5:39Speaker 1: their cousins, they don't want to share their new Christmas toys,
- 5:43Speaker 1: and you might be able to say, hey, you know what,
- 5:44Speaker 1: we've got that DVD remember when we had Maybe you've
- 5:47Speaker 1: got a DVD lined up, or if you're a DVD
- 5:50Speaker 1: or if you're a modern parent, you might even have
- 5:52Speaker 1: a subscription service and you can stream something.
- 5:56Speaker 3: Has you know.
- 5:57Speaker 2: Our seven year old shared a story with me that
- 5:58Speaker 2: she wrote the other day. She was talking about this
- 6:01Speaker 2: tape and she looked at me and she said, you know, mum,
- 6:03Speaker 2: the tapes that you recorded the movies on and you
- 6:06Speaker 2: push them into that machine.
- 6:08Speaker 1: Really, she said, or she didn't know what it was,
- 6:11Speaker 1: but she knew that it was a machine that existed.
- 6:13Speaker 1: All right, well, we've just dated.
- 6:14Speaker 2: Ourselves anyway, we don't dress. Let's go to phase two.
- 6:19Speaker 1: Okay. Our practice acceptance is this one. And we talked
- 6:22Speaker 1: about this at length in the webinar. The kids are
- 6:25Speaker 1: going to grow in a moon. Sometimes your partner might
- 6:29Speaker 1: be apathetic or misaligned with your view. In other words,
- 6:34Speaker 1: you might be like, oh, this is going to be
- 6:35Speaker 1: so special, it's all about family, and they're like hate it.
- 6:38Speaker 1: Can't wait for it to be over because that happens.
- 6:40Speaker 1: Let's be real about it. Some people really struggle with
- 6:42Speaker 1: this sort of stuff. And if you can just accept that.
- 6:45Speaker 2: Well, Grandpa shows up and if he gets his hearing aids,
- 6:48Speaker 2: so he talks at the top of his voice, or
- 6:50Speaker 2: you have to repeat yourself fifteen times because Grandma's not listening.
- 6:53Speaker 1: Or was she staring at a phone?
- 6:54Speaker 2: Whatever it is, and you can make a little bit
- 6:58Speaker 2: of a game out of it, can't you.
- 7:00Speaker 1: Well, you're not in a nasty way, but let's just
- 7:04Speaker 1: accept sometimes it is what it is. They are who
- 7:06Speaker 1: they are. I think it's really important that we attribute
- 7:09Speaker 1: the best possible motives to them. They didn't show with bingo.
- 7:13Speaker 1: That's right, you get to come.
- 7:14Speaker 2: How many times does grandma not listen?
- 7:16Speaker 1: How many times does Grandpa say that same dad joke
- 7:19Speaker 1: that he says every.
- 7:20Speaker 2: Year, who's the first one to two?
- 7:24Speaker 1: By the way, in our family, we don't say fart,
- 7:27Speaker 1: we say suit can't believe you? Just okay? So they're
- 7:30Speaker 1: the first two things. You know what, Let's do one
- 7:31Speaker 1: more before the break.
- 7:32Speaker 2: Because phase three craft your joy. I really think I
- 7:37Speaker 2: just want to live in face.
- 7:38Speaker 1: I really want to emphasize this, and that is that
- 7:41Speaker 1: there are some things that are going to bring you
- 7:42Speaker 1: joy at Christmas, and it might be involving your family
- 7:45Speaker 1: or it might not, but make sure that when you're
- 7:47Speaker 1: scheduling your Christmas Day that you acknowledge the things that
- 7:52Speaker 1: matter most to you and schedule an opportunity for it.
- 7:54Speaker 1: So for you and I, there are a couple of
- 7:56Speaker 1: things that I think matter most. We love morning hugs
- 8:00Speaker 1: the kids on the Christmas Eve. We love to go
- 8:02Speaker 1: to bed early with a book, and by early I
- 8:04Speaker 1: mean about eight thirty, so we fall asleep by about
- 8:07Speaker 1: page six. We love to after we've opened our gifts,
- 8:12Speaker 1: have conversations about what we've been what we've been grateful
- 8:15Speaker 1: for during the year, what has been the most wonderful
- 8:17Speaker 1: gift that we've experienced in our lives during the last year.
- 8:20Speaker 1: We make sure that we read through the Nativity with
- 8:22Speaker 1: the kids. Those are things that bring our family and
- 8:25Speaker 1: bring us joy.
- 8:26Speaker 2: The kids love us watching them open their gifts. They
- 8:29Speaker 2: actually love us to be a part of that and
- 8:32Speaker 2: to watch their expressions and for them to be able
- 8:36Speaker 2: to express their joy and their gratefulness and gratitude for
- 8:41Speaker 2: the things that they've been gifted.
- 8:43Speaker 1: So I think that it's critically important as we go
- 8:45Speaker 1: to the break that we recognize that Christmas, even if
- 8:48Speaker 1: it does come with stress, because the relatives can be
- 8:50Speaker 1: cranks sometimes or grinchy. There are some things that happen
- 8:54Speaker 1: on Christmas Day, or on Christmas Eve, or around the
- 8:56Speaker 1: Christmas season that bring us joy, and we need to
- 9:00Speaker 1: create the space make the moments of joy and bliss
- 9:04Speaker 1: happen so that Christmas does feel special at least in
- 9:07Speaker 1: those moments.
- 9:09Speaker 2: I love it.
- 9:10Speaker 1: After the break a handful of other ideas to help
- 9:12Speaker 1: you to make Christmas work for you. It's the Happy
- 9:15Speaker 1: Families Podcast.
- 9:17Speaker 3: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having
- 9:20Speaker 3: to feel bad or in trouble. The do's and don'ts
- 9:22Speaker 3: of discipline as a webinar to help parents set limits
- 9:25Speaker 3: with love, compassion, and humanity. Find it now at happy
- 9:29Speaker 3: families dot com dot au slash shop.
- 9:32Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families Podcast, The podcast for the time
- 9:34Speaker 2: poor parent who just wants answers now and today. If
- 9:37Speaker 2: you're feeling a little bit grinchy, then this podcast might
- 9:41Speaker 2: be helpful.
- 9:42Speaker 1: How do we navigate the challenges of Christmas and relatives
- 9:47Speaker 1: and people being in our space? And I don't know
- 9:50Speaker 1: somebody is saying something insensitive because that does tend to
- 9:53Speaker 1: happen at Christmas when big groups get together, especially if
- 9:56Speaker 1: you come from a family where there's a bit of
- 9:57Speaker 1: a bit of wine or a bit of alcohol involved,
- 9:59Speaker 1: somebody can't help but open up their mouth and say
- 10:01Speaker 1: that offensive thing.
- 10:03Speaker 2: I think too, we're a little bit more sensitive at
- 10:06Speaker 2: this time of year as well, because we were so
- 10:08Speaker 2: tired and stressed.
- 10:09Speaker 1: We're supposed to be relaxed, so none.
- 10:11Speaker 2: Of us are at our best where sometimes those things
- 10:14Speaker 2: would happen and they just kind of brush over us.
- 10:16Speaker 2: But in that timeframe, which just is so extra sensitive too, right,
- 10:22Speaker 2: So phase four is to assume the best intentions.
- 10:27Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I kind of touched on this before,
- 10:29Speaker 1: but let's just really drill into this for a second.
- 10:31Speaker 1: Maybe your father in law is that guy who just
- 10:33Speaker 1: says offensive things, especially if he's had a drink or two.
- 10:37Speaker 1: And what he's saying might absolutely reek of politically correctness.
- 10:43Speaker 1: It might offend your sensibilities, and you might even be
- 10:47Speaker 1: right and he might actually be wrong. But what's actually
- 10:51Speaker 1: going on is he's trying to share something that's important
- 10:54Speaker 1: to him and he believes that he's right and he
- 10:56Speaker 1: wants you to realize his wise ways. And the same
- 11:00Speaker 1: thing happens when your Mum shows up and it's critical
- 11:03Speaker 1: of what you're wearing. What are you wearing that for
- 11:05Speaker 1: on Christmas Day? Or what you cooked? Why did you
- 11:07Speaker 1: prepare that it's too hot for this or it's too
- 11:09Speaker 1: cold for that, or the cooking or the kids, or
- 11:11Speaker 1: in their own clumsy way. Have you noticed that sometimes
- 11:14Speaker 1: relatives try to be helpful by pointing out all of
- 11:16Speaker 1: your faults and everything that's wrong with the way you're
- 11:18Speaker 1: living your life, and Christmas days the day to do
- 11:20Speaker 1: it like it's clumsy, it's wrongheaded, it's inappropriate, but they're trying.
- 11:24Speaker 1: They didn't wake up that morning and think, oh, how
- 11:26Speaker 1: can I make how can I ruin Christmas? How can
- 11:29Speaker 1: I offend everybody at Christmas lunch? Like that's not what
- 11:32Speaker 1: they woke up doing. And I think we've just got
- 11:35Speaker 1: to assume the best of intentions. We can find our
- 11:37Speaker 1: relatives far easier to stomach when we just think it's
- 11:40Speaker 1: just who they are and they're actually trying to be helpful.
- 11:42Speaker 1: They don't realize how much they're stepping in it well.
- 11:45Speaker 2: And I think the reality is for a lot of
- 11:47Speaker 2: people being in each other's space in a really concentrated
- 11:50Speaker 2: period with everybody involved can actually be overwhelming, and we
- 11:55Speaker 2: say and do things that we wouldn't normally say and
- 11:57Speaker 2: do because we're in that situation. But I think that
- 12:03Speaker 2: you're right. It's a really hard one to do when
- 12:05Speaker 2: you feel hurt by someone else. But if we can
- 12:09Speaker 2: kind of just take a step back and recognize that
- 12:13Speaker 2: they have a good heart.
- 12:14Speaker 1: Well hopefully they do. My typical response will be shruggered off.
- 12:17Speaker 1: But I think it's also important to just highlight if
- 12:20Speaker 1: this is a person who is a repeat offender, if
- 12:22Speaker 1: this is a person who is a needler and an antagonist,
- 12:25Speaker 1: if this is a person who has created pain and
- 12:28Speaker 1: difficulty and horrible stuff in your life over the years.
- 12:33Speaker 1: It might also be appropriate to just say, actually, we're
- 12:35Speaker 1: not going to do a family Christmas anymore. We'll have
- 12:37Speaker 1: a phone call, but this year Christmas is kind of
- 12:41Speaker 1: canceled for extended family. We're just having a Christmas together.
- 12:44Speaker 1: I did that a few years ago, probably about ten
- 12:46Speaker 1: or eleven years ago, with my extended family. So I'm
- 12:49Speaker 1: the oldest of six kids, and you remember this. I
- 12:52Speaker 1: rang mum and let her know, Hey, you know what
- 12:55Speaker 1: our oldest child is now. I think our oldest was
- 12:58Speaker 1: twelve even or twelve, we had five of our six
- 13:02Speaker 1: children by then. I have one other sibling that had kids,
- 13:06Speaker 1: but none of the other siblings had any children at all.
- 13:09Speaker 1: And when I rang mom, I said, We're just going
- 13:11Speaker 1: to have Christmas with our family this year. We might
- 13:13Speaker 1: see you before or after, but Christmas Day it's going
- 13:15Speaker 1: to be our family day. And a couple of my
- 13:17Speaker 1: siblings found out, and they were incensed. What do you
- 13:20Speaker 1: mean It's Christmas, We're supposed to be together. They couldn't comprehend.
- 13:23Speaker 1: A couple of years ago, my little brother said to me,
- 13:25Speaker 1: I was so upset. I was so offended when you
- 13:27Speaker 1: did that. But now I've got three of my own children,
- 13:29Speaker 1: and his oldest, I think is nine or ten, and
- 13:32Speaker 1: he basically said, I don't want to get together for Christmas.
- 13:36Speaker 1: I want it to be my family. Like things change,
- 13:39Speaker 1: and so whether it's putting boundaries in place because you've
- 13:41Speaker 1: been hurt, or putting boundaries in place just because your
- 13:43Speaker 1: family needs it, it's okay to do that. We've got
- 13:46Speaker 1: to give people a commission for that.
- 13:49Speaker 2: Number five. Find ways to serve others. This is a
- 13:53Speaker 2: favorite one in our home. We love this and Christmas
- 13:56Speaker 2: time just provides a little bit bit more space for
- 14:00Speaker 2: us to do it. But we love finding opportunities to serve.
- 14:03Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want to specifically highlight serve each other.
- 14:08Speaker 1: So a wise mentor of mine once pointed out the
- 14:12Speaker 1: bi directional relationship between love and service. He said to me,
- 14:16Speaker 1: you'll find that the people that you love the most
- 14:18Speaker 1: you want to serve. But the people that you serve
- 14:22Speaker 1: the most, you tend to increase in love. For the
- 14:25Speaker 1: more you do things for somebody, the more you actually
- 14:28Speaker 1: love them. And I love that concept. I think that
- 14:33Speaker 1: there's a wonderful opportunity for us at Christmas to find
- 14:35Speaker 1: joy in serving our family. It might be just expressions
- 14:38Speaker 1: of appreciation. It could be doing something really nice for them,
- 14:42Speaker 1: doing things that bring you closer together, and doing it
- 14:45Speaker 1: without an expectation, and you watch the way that it
- 14:49Speaker 1: shifts your heart.
- 14:50Speaker 2: When I saw this ninja come up on my screen
- 14:53Speaker 2: the other day, I actually had this little thought because
- 14:56Speaker 2: our kids love doing secret siblings.
- 14:58Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, secret sisters.
- 14:59Speaker 2: Yeah, they just what we call it sibling now because
- 15:02Speaker 2: we've got a brother in law. That's right, they can't
- 15:04Speaker 2: be sisters. He gets left out. And I was thinking
- 15:08Speaker 2: about how we could extend on that because they just
- 15:10Speaker 2: love they love doing the secret stuff and wondered whether
- 15:15Speaker 2: or not secret sisters could extend for a few days
- 15:18Speaker 2: and they have to try and do secret acts of
- 15:19Speaker 2: service for each other and see who can do it
- 15:21Speaker 2: without getting caught.
- 15:23Speaker 1: Just something amazing about serving a family and bringing everyone together,
- 15:26Speaker 1: and it can really lead into the sixth idea that
- 15:29Speaker 1: I wanted to share, which is Christmas is a time
- 15:31Speaker 1: for healing wounds. And healing wounds usually comes through offering forgiveness,
- 15:34Speaker 1: It comes through saying sorry, It comes through service and
- 15:36Speaker 1: going out of your way to lift help and be
- 15:40Speaker 1: good to others. And I just I know that it's
- 15:43Speaker 1: a sensitive thing for some. But if we can swallow
- 15:46Speaker 1: our pride and acknowledge our faults and say sorry, if
- 15:48Speaker 1: we can make unconditional apologies, that may actually be the
- 15:51Speaker 1: best Christmas gift that we can give to our family.
- 15:54Speaker 2: Well number seven was to serve a higher cause.
- 15:57Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, we come together with a common purpose, especially
- 16:01Speaker 1: one that's deep and meaningful to us, we can kind
- 16:05Speaker 1: of forget about our petti grievances with one another, because
- 16:08Speaker 1: families get caught up fighting about stuff that actually doesn't
- 16:11Speaker 1: really matter that much quite often, and so in the
- 16:13Speaker 1: webinar we talked about different ways that we can find
- 16:17Speaker 1: something bigger than us and make a difference in our
- 16:20Speaker 1: family and in families of those that we know. We've
- 16:24Speaker 1: seen people use Christmas as a time to donate to
- 16:27Speaker 1: a cause together or volunteer in the community. Some families
- 16:31Speaker 1: choose to just work as a family to decorate their
- 16:34Speaker 1: home and yard with Christmas lights, and that brings delight
- 16:36Speaker 1: and joy to the neighborhood and everyone else from that
- 16:38Speaker 1: local town or city where everyone drives past. U says, well,
- 16:41Speaker 1: look at those lights. And of course, if you've got
- 16:42Speaker 1: a faith background, once again, serve us through religious participation
- 16:47Speaker 1: can also be really great in lifting lifting our sights
- 16:51Speaker 1: to something much bigger than just our family and just ourselves.
- 16:54Speaker 1: That can really bind families and strengthen relationships.
- 16:57Speaker 2: Well, hopefully you found something that's helpful to help keep
- 17:00Speaker 2: the cranks down this Christmas.
- 17:02Speaker 1: And if you'd like more info, just jump onto Happy
- 17:04Speaker 1: Families dot com dot you. The webinar is called tis
- 17:07Speaker 1: the Season to be Cranky? How to handle in laws
- 17:10Speaker 1: and other grinches, And there's a whole lot more that
- 17:13Speaker 1: we've talked about in terms of navigating the trickiness of
- 17:16Speaker 1: kids not wanting to play with their cousins or not
- 17:18Speaker 1: wanting to hang out with Gramma, Grandpa, or whatever it
- 17:20Speaker 1: might be the challenges around Christmas. It's all at Happy
- 17:23Speaker 1: families dot com dot a you. The Happy Families podcast
- 17:26Speaker 1: is produced by Justin Rulon from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce
- 17:29Speaker 1: is our executive producer. We hope that this podcast will
- 17:33Speaker 1: make your Christmas happier. Oh, by the way, something else
- 17:35Speaker 1: that might make Christmas happier is to give one of
- 17:38Speaker 1: our books to somebody that you love for Christmas, or
- 17:41Speaker 1: maybe a Happy Families membership. You can buy one yourself
- 17:44Speaker 1: as your personal Christmas present, or you can give them
- 17:47Speaker 1: to others. All of the information about the books, the
- 17:50Speaker 1: Happy Families Annual Premium membership, and much more is available
- 17:54Speaker 1: at Happy families dot com dot au.