By Lucy Corkhill
14th December 2014
Create space and time for the sacred – Everyone has their own unique way to tap into a place of peace and oneness. Make a place for the sacred in your family’s schedule. If you’re rushing from one thing to the next the whole festive period, you’ll most likely find that there was never a moment that you felt the magic. Whether it’s gathering round the fire or the table for some shared time together, taking a walk, crafting, singing, or baking, make sure there’s room for the sacred to fill your heart and home.
Visit your sacred place – If you’re religious, this might be a chapel or a synagogue. For others with a vaguer sense of faith, but a determination to seek the spiritual, there are plenty of places to find peace and contemplation. They might be wild spaces near your home: beautiful woodland, windswept beaches, or deserted moors. Perhaps your heart fills with joy when you see a night cityscape lit up with Christmas lights. Whatever it is, find your sacred space and fit it in to your Christmas schedule.
Start a family tradition – Traditions are the stuff of family legend and they can add a sense of the sacred to any event. Gather your children around you with blankets and hot chocolate to read the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve, or visit a special place on Boxing Day to lay home-made wreaths for the faeries.
Enjoy firelight and candlelight – A flickering fire connects us to our ancestors and draws our attention inwards. Watching the flames can be a gentle meditation. Lighting a candle with intention enables us to focus on what we really want the festive period to be about. As you light your candle, think of each family member in turn and imagine a loving glow connecting you and them. Visualise your family bathed in bright golden light and then extend this outwards to neighbours, community, the UK, and then the world at large. Feel that love and connection extend outwards from your heart and state your intention to be peaceful and loving with your family and everyone you spend time with in the coming days.
Celebrate your loved ones, past and present – Special events like Christmas offer us a chance to remember Christmases gone by, sometimes with people who are no longer with us. Light a candle for each family member – both present and those from our memories – and as you do so, say their name and wish them love and happiness. Find a special phrase that resonates for your family: “Grandpa, we remember you at Christmas with your happy laughter and funny stories. We love you” and for those present: “Jane, we celebrate you at Christmas with your generous spirit and sense of adventure. We love you” etc.
Sing together – One Christmas tradition that seems to have gone out the window a bit is singing together. Victorian and Edwardian families would gather round the ‘old joanna’ for a good singsong. There’s something uplifting and fun about singing together, whatever your abilities. Put on a CD of Christmas carols or Christmas pop classics – or dust off the piano keys – and invite everyone to have a sing. Instruments up the fun! For more reticent singers, opt for candlelight. This creates a sense of ambience and has the effect of transporting you all to a timeless place, plus nervous singers can hide in the shadows until they gain confidence. Looking round at your family’s faces lit by candlelight and singing their hearts out is sure to boost feel-good feelings.
Laugh – Practitioners of laughter yoga know that a good belly laugh takes us closer to enlightenment – just look at the Buddha! Make up your own family-orientated cracker jokes. Snuggle up to watch a funny family movie. Have a tickle or a pillow fight. Read a silly story. Let the warmth of your children’s laughter fill you up with light and loving feelings.
Focus on presence rather than presents – If your kids are used to a complete present mountain on Christmas morning, it can be hard to shift the focus. But begin gradually by shifting the focus to Christmas games, a special Christmas breakfast, silly hide and seek as a family. In the long run, your kids are more likely to remember you playing tag with a Rudolph costume on, than they are another toy. Of course, children are going to expect presents at Christmas but you can make them really count by making the opening a time of reverence, creating real space for it and sitting down with your kids as they open their presents. It might help to stagger presents throughout the day/s and make the festive period primarily about games, stories, and being together as a family.
