Cultivating a Family Tradition
for the New Year
New Year’s traditions for families are often
focused on a meal or football. Our team felt
it was time for a change! We came up with
this beautiful idea to gather the family together to listen to each member’s goals and
dreams. Each family member writes his or
her hopes on piece of plantable seed paper
and then plants the pieces together to literally cultivate a new future.
We asked one of our favorite contributors;
Charise Rohm Nulsen to try it with her
newly expanded family, and these are her
thoughts!
As the holidays approach, I find myself thinking about the new traditions I want to begin
with my family. Especially now that our family
is complete with our two-year-old son and baby
girl, I’ve focused on creating traditions that are
simple, meaningful, and reflective of our values,
which includes doing our best to be a green and
natural family.
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The
concept of making resolutions in celebration of
the New Year is a difficult one to grasp for little ones. So this year, we are trying something
new from the editors of Green Child Magazine:
We will plant our resolutions on seed paper,
watch them grow, and tend to them throughout
the year. I can’t think of a more beautiful way
for children to learn the concept of fulfilling a
promise to yourself, as well the lesson that beauty often blooms in response to a commitment to
both nature and one’s self.
To prepare for this activity, my son and I talked
about things that make us happy. My two year
old gave several responses that included cars
and trucks, Dada, and our cat, Kaia. I drew some
symbols to represent these things that brought
him happiness, and we discussed how important
it is to take care of the people and things that
make us happy while he colored the symbols
and added his own drawings to the paper.