Developing a bond between you and your children should be your number one priority this holiday season. According to Psalms 127:3 “Children are a gift from the Lord. They are a reward from Him.” As such, creating an environment where your kids feel loved and at home should be your number one priority.
What are some important things you can do for your children this holiday season? How do you begin a new set of traditions that can create special memories for you and your children? There are a variety of answers to these questions, and you can enjoy the experience with the right steps to get everyone involved. Let us talk about these steps.
Create new traditions
You should create new traditions and experiences with your children. These can come in the form of games, cooking, family activities, and getting outdoors in nature as shared in Creation Illustrated magazine. It is your responsibility to make sure that your children have a pleasant experience even in the creation of new traditions, especially when they promote health and closeness.
Try some new dishes with your family
There are many tasty dishes that you can try with your family, and success increases when children are involved. You should keep in mind that the new dishes you create with your children could be a new tradition for them or perhaps a dish that they always remember when they grow up.
With that, you should try new dishes with your family, and we have a bunch for you. You can check out the Hearty Holiday Pleasers eCookbook, a cookbook coming from Creation Illustrated that aims to provide you with a variety of healthful recipes that you can try out as a family.
Let the children do their part
You should get the children to get involved in making healthy recipes. If you find that there are some vegan choices that you would like to try with your family, you should get them involved in the process, and they will eat it. The key is to let them help.
Give them choices. You can start by asking them the following questions:
- Would you prefer broccoli or zucchini in the lasagna?
- Would you like carrots or celery or both in the soup?
- Should we have potatoes or rice?
- Which would be better, oranges or grapefruit in the fruit salad?
Keep in mind that If your children feel involved in the decisions, they will be excited that they helped, be eager to share it with guests, and will enjoy what they made.
If you feel that your children are complaining and need to be disciplined, this is also a good time to do that. Help them be grateful and count their blessings. Proverbs 13:24 provides that “Those who love their children care enough to discipline them.” Take this to heart and make sure that you give proper guidance, teach manners, and show social graces to your children the right way. A well-disciplined and well-behaved child is a blessing to the world and not just to his parents.
Take it slowly
One of the biggest mistakes that parents make when it comes to creating new traditions and feeding their children with vegetables or vegan dishes is the fact that they do not take it slow. Children are easily traumatized by menus that are not familiar to them or that are in the color green.
If you want your children to have a peaceful experience with new vegetables, you should try one dish at a time and maybe incorporate something like cauliflower into the soup or legumes into an appetizer spread that is tastily seasoned.
If you want this holiday season to be purely vegan, you can slowly get your children into the whole process of eating vegetables throughout the year or close to the holidays.
What if I have adult children?
It may be that you already have adult children who have their own set of priorities and who will not be spending the holidays with you. The best thing that we can recommend is for you to try and give them a great cookbook that will provide you with healthy recipes that would help them to create their own new family favorites and traditions.
The Hearty Holiday Pleasers eCookbook would be the best choice here. The cookbook has 56 pages of delicious, mouth-watering vegan recipes that are sure to become crowd-pleasers.
Why is it important to have new family traditions?
It is important to have new family traditions to enjoy with your children of any age because they bring joy and memories for an amazing time during the holidays. Your children are a great source of joy, and they deserve this thoughtful approach to the holidays.
Experience healthy food with your family
It is important to have a healthy life with your family, so start this new tradition of eating healthfully during family gatherings. Share food with them that could help motivate them to have greater health of their own now and in the future. We believe that healthful food is God’s way of saying that we should live to enjoy all that He created for our benefit. Scripture says, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2). We should never take it for granted.
