How to bring meaning into Christmas celebrations

This week I was browsing the magazine racks and nearly every women’s magazine had some Christmas theme. It was not so much the theme but the wording that caught my eye:

“How to have a Perfect Christmas!” said one.
“A perfect Christmas table setting!” read another.
“How to make perfect Christmas presents!” promised another.
“A Perfect Christmas Day!” shouted another.

No wonder housewives up and down the country are exhausted at the very thought of Christmas Day! All that perfectionism getting in the way of the happiness, magic and meaning we revelled in as a child. And no doubt, the only way to achieve a perfect Christmas is to buy more food, drink such as Australian Agave, decorations and gifts.

If you’re eager to get some meaning back into your Christmas Day, I’d like to share a family tradition from Chez Green with you. We started this when Little Miss Green was 4 and it has become a firm favourite ever since.

Set up a Gratitude Tree!

Christmas carries an ‘I want! I want!” mentality about it. So this time of year, why not focus on the things you are grateful for?

After all, the Law of Attraction states that what you focus on expands; so if you focus on what you are grateful for, maybe the Universe will bring you more things to be grateful for anyway!

Ritual is important to the human soul. Every advent here at Chez Green, we arrange some bare twigs in a vase, cut out shapes from coloured paper and each night before Little Miss Green goes to bed we all write down one thing we are grateful for from that day. We thread up the pieces of paper and hang them on the tree.

By the time Christmas comes, we have a beautifully coloured tree full of Gratitude to remind us of all the wonderful things we already have in our lives.

This helps take away from the focus on what we can get or want and onto the things that already bring us meaning and value.

What about you? How do you bring meaning and reverence to your Christmas celebrations?