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 We like to bring the Secret Santa tradition into our own home for a
fabulous Twelve Days of Christmas pampering and surprises – when
you’re poking around a wine cabinet – or looking for crackers in the
cupboard – you come upon a surprise. It’s the best way we know for slowly
catching the spirit of the season in our family.
Set aside an evening, or weekend, for the cooks in your family (all ages
welcome) or a flock of good friends to bake Christmas Cookies together. It
makes it more fun, much more of a giggle!! Who cares if you eat more than
you wrap!
Share a favorite Christmas memory during After Dinner Coffee or brandy with
family or friends. Go around the circle with tales and lore. It will bring
you all closer.
Go as a family to select your tree then spend an entire evening decorating
the tree. Let Christmas music fill the house - have a fire aglow. Serve
your favorite hot soup and warm bread with a special (but simple) dessert
or slowly sip brandy while you enjoy the moment!!
After family dinners – play board games, take a walk together, read or
tell stories, go skating, sledding – to a football game – a parade. Relate
with your relatives and friends too.
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The week between Christmas and New Year's is a quiet one in the world - a
great time to spend time together doing things you never have time to do
as a family the rest of the year
 Have a long
Sunday dinner mid-afternoon, then a walk.
Go for a winter
hike and picnic in the woods.
While away the
afternoon, playing Monopoly or Parcheesi.
Go to a concert
or the ballet.
Build a snowman.
Make homemade
marshmallows for Hot Chocolate.
Make homemade pasta
or bread together.
Use your Christmas dishes and best silver for
every meal, starting just after Thanksgiving until the Feast of Epiphany
(12th day of Christmas). Why not?
Have a Pot Luck supper so you can see friends and not do all of the work!
Have each couple bring ornaments for all other couples to exchange. Bring
five, come home with five different ones. Make this an annual event – you
might even request handmade ornaments. Hmmm, that may be pushing it!
Have a caroling party. Better still, go by horse drawn sleighs or
carriages. Be sure to hand out song sheets with the words. Visit a rest
home, as well as friends. Then come home to a chili or soup party!!
Bring a sense of secrets and surprises into your house by leaving love
notes or tiny surprises under pillows, at the breakfast table, on the
steering wheel of the car, or in someone’s pocket or briefcase.
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Expand Secret Santa’s to your friends. Draw names with a group of friends
and be “secret pals” for a week. Send wine and cheese in a
taxi. Arrange for a Chinese dinner to arrive. Write a greeting in the snow
and hang a candy bar on a tree outside your friend’s home.
Have an “off limits” Christmas room. Wrap
presents as you buy them and enjoy wrapping them. Code them with the
numbers cross referenced in a notebook so that sneaky children can't.
Write your Christmas cards
– a few each day for 4 weeks or more – you’ll enjoy it and your friends
will receive a present from your heart!
Sooty footprints on the
carpet from the fireplace makes a very convincing visual argument for
Santa.
Have a child’s drawing made into a Christmas card at your local printer.
Watch “The Sound of Music”, “White Christmas”, “For Whom
The Bell Tolls”, “The Nutcracker”, or “The Snowman” as a
family.
Spend time reading aloud to
someone special – by firelight.
Remember an elderly relative, neighbor, or sick friend. Make batches of
soup, stews, pasta sauces, and one-dish meals and freeze them. This will
make their life a little easier. You’ll be older, but wiser, one day, too
soon.
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