Create Your Own Personal Christmas Traditions

Written by Donna D. Fontenot


Create Your Own Personal Christmas Traditions

The Christmas holidays are steeped in familiar, old traditions. Decorating our homes, trimmingrepparttar tree, exchanging gifts, hanging mistletoe and many other traditions are staples ofrepparttar 111243 season. And while these old traditions can create warm memories, you may be missing out on something special. This Christmas season, take some time to consider creating your own special family tradition. Perhaps a glimpse into my own family's unique tradition will inspire you to discover one as well.

My Family's Personal Christmas Tradition

Many years ago, my mother became addicted to garage-saleing. She would wake up bright and early every Friday and Saturday morning (year-round), retrieverepparttar 111244 newspaper fromrepparttar 111245 driveway, and circle all ofrepparttar 111246 garage sales near her neighborhood that were listed inrepparttar 111247 classified section. Then, with a group of 2-3 lifelong friends, she would begin her quest for that perfect 'gift' that someone else was discarding. She rarely paid more than 50 cents for an item. The gifts were usually slighlty worn, even a little broken. (In fact, many times a perfect item would end up broken byrepparttar 111248 time she got it home. She was a little clumsy). But byrepparttar 111249 end of each shopping trip, she would arrive home with 10-20 items, that she would proudly display to my father. He, of course, would usually groan, because he always knew that she would be asking him to mendrepparttar 111250 broken pieces, or re-paint an old item. Needless to say, byrepparttar 111251 end of a year, my mother had managed to accumulate hundreds of 'special gifts', but had spent very little money doing so.

A few days before Christmas, it would then be my job to help her wrap all of these gifts. She generally bought as many Christmas bags as she could find (at garage sales of course), sorepparttar 111252 task was made somewhat simpler. All I had to do was throwrepparttar 111253 gift intorepparttar 111254 bag, and mark it with a recipient's name. How did I know who was to receive which gift? Well, Mom kept a running list throughoutrepparttar 111255 year which identified which item was reserved for which member ofrepparttar 111256 family. Of course, she often mis-labeled things, sorepparttar 111257 male members of our family occasionally received nice lingerie, whilerepparttar 111258 female members would receive a new hunting cap!

Labeling is Disabling: Achieving Congruent Communication

Written by Azriel Winnett


A small town, somewhere inrepparttar world, was managed by a town council of seven or eight members. The council normally met once a week. One member - let's call him Bill - would invariably stroll intorepparttar 111242 council chamber exactly ten minutes afterrepparttar 111243 time scheduled forrepparttar 111244 meeting.

For Bill's fellow councilors, this seemingly inconsiderate practice was very disruptive. At first, since Bill was known to be an extremely busy professional, they were prepared to assume that he had been unavoidably delayed. But when history repeated itself meeting after meeting, they began to wonder..

Then one day,repparttar 111245 sleepy little town was overtaken by a crisis, andrepparttar 111246 mayor asked his councilors to attend an emergency session - at 7repparttar 111247 following morning. And you guessed it - Bill turned up at 7:10 precisely.

This seemed to confirmrepparttar 111248 mayor's suspicion's that something more than unavoidable circumstances lay behind Bill's habitual latecoming. Afterrepparttar 111249 meeting he called overrepparttar 111250 offending councilman for a private chat.

Torepparttar 111251 mayor's surprise, Bill acceptedrepparttar 111252 rebuke with good grace. Punctuality had never been his strongest point, he pleaded, and it had never dawned on him that his bad habit was upsetting everybody so. But from this point, he assuredrepparttar 111253 mayor, he was a reformed man...

The day ofrepparttar 111254 next council gathering came around, and sure enough, Bill was amongrepparttar 111255 first to arrive.

"What'srepparttar 111256 matter Bill?" jeered one of his colleagues. "Is your watch half an hour fast?"

"Surely, you were locked out of your house!" added a second, in a somewhat derisive tone.

Right untilrepparttar 111257 end of his term of office, Bill was never on time for a council meeting again.

*********

This is a story that actually happened, although I have changed some ofrepparttar 111258 details.

Three or four decades ago, an educational psychologist byrepparttar 111259 name of Haim Ginott caused quite a stir when he suggested to parents and teachers that they try a new way of communicating with children. He urged them to unlearnrepparttar 111260 language of rejection - blaming and shaming, ridiculing and belittling, threatening and bribing - and to learn a new language of acceptance.

In his bestselling books, Ginott repeatedly wrote aboutrepparttar 111261 need for "congruent communication." By this, he meant thatrepparttar 111262 way we communicate should be congruent, or consistent, with our objective.

What a pity that so much of our communication isn't!

We see this clearly from our story. Had his colleagues given Bill some badly needed encouragement in breaking a difficult habit, everybody would have come out a winner. But instead of drawing him near, they pushed him away.

Before taking up psychology, Ginott had been an elementary school teacher, first in Israel and then inrepparttar 111263 USA. But he was not happy, for he realized that his professional training had not equipped him well forrepparttar 111264 cold realities ofrepparttar 111265 classroom. "I tried to teach my students to be polite," he complained, "and they were rude; to be neat, and they were messy; to be cooperative, and they were disruptive!"

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