FAMILY

I know, the grandma talks too much and grandpa keeps forgetting your name but you know what – they are family. Family bonds are important, as they are a link to our past and a great pointer to our future. Time flies and before you know it, it’s Christmas time again.

You might think that you have grown out of your family but you will be wrong. It is where your roots are and from where you grew. It’s where you were molded into a person that you are today. It’s where you were taught values that you carry with you throughout your life. All those bedtime stories, hugs and daily meals shared together created memories that no one will be able to erase and left a family legacy that will last forever.

Strong family bonds are important and they help us in all aspects of life. However, you can’t take family values and family bonds for granted. You need to rebuild them and work on them both for today and for future generations. Christmas time is one such time when all the family bonds and all the family values get the boost that will last until some future holiday.

George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” Christmas is that time of year when you and your family get to be as happy as that.



FOOD

Christmas family meal is traditional and very important part of the Christmas celebration. Although you will probably not follow the steps of King John of England who once ordered 3000 capons, 1000 salted eels, 400 hogs, 100 pounds of almonds and 24 casks of wine for his Christmas feast, you will still have something special.

Roast turkey (or a goose), beef, ham, stuffing, squash and roasted and/or mashed potatoes are one way or another probably going to find their way to your Christmas dinner table. Once you finish stuffing yourself on ham, roast beef or goose, your inner child awakens and you will probably wish for something sweet. Fortunately for you, that same grandma that talks too much probably prepared enormous quantities of pumpkin pie, Christmas pudding, trifle, marzipan, sugar cookies, fruitcake and mince pies.

Christmas time is special and maybe the best time of year when we can act as Mary C. Bateson and freely say - “Human beings do not eat nutrients, they eat food.”



LOVE

Last, but never the least, Christmas would not be the same without Love. Christmas is the time when you can really enjoy and bath yourself in the love of your loved ones. It is doubly important that, on Christmas, you show your parents, your grandparents, your partner and your children all the love you have for them. Renew your love and renew your life knowing that love is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

Finally, this Christmas, before you go to bed, do not forget to say “Thank you for a house full of people I love. Amen.”