For years now, one of the highlights of the holiday season for my family has been our Advent Calendar. It’s a lovely little tabletop oak cabinet, painted burgundy, and features 24 mini compartments – each with its own door and knob. My husband and I pull it out after Thanksgiving, along with all of the other holiday decor, in anticipation for a fun and festive Christmas season.
When our girls were little, we’d enjoy filling the compartments with fun things that would fit inside – nothing extravagant, just small items like chapsticks, pencil eraser tops, coins, wrapped candies, etc. But as the kids grew older, the things we thought they would enjoy didn’t always fit inside the tiny compartments. For those that didn’t, we’d instead leave notes inside the cubbies, turning the activity into a scavenger hunt around the house – a clue on folded paper that led to new pairs of warm socks hidden under the couch, nail polish hidden in the hall table drawer, etc. But some of those pieces of paper eventually became, do something nice for someone today and share it with us at dinner, take the dog for a walk on a new route around the neighborhood, or one of my favorites, help mom with something around the house without being asked.
The receiving season had turned more into the giving season!
Now that our girls have reached adulthood, and no longer live with us 24/7 during the month of December, I’ve had to think of another creative way to continue our family’s Advent tradition. While giving is truly the reason for the season, they thankfully already embody that character trait as awesome humans that share their gifts with the world on a daily basis (no longer in need of a nudge from our Advent cabinet!) I have, therefore, begun to take a different approach, especially with the post-Covid world’s need to integrate more personal wellness into daily routines.
Linked below is my solution – 24 self-care activities. Take a peek, and feel free to print and forward to anyone you think would like or benefit from it. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, it could simply be a fun December wellness adventure. It would also be a nice addition (or healthier replacement!) to the chocolate Advent calendars that are oh-so-tempting at market checkout lines.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did in preparing it, and that well-being and self care continue to be a primary focus for us all as we successfully move through this holiday season and into a new year.
Happy Holidays!
litetherapy.org 