Christms spirit on the cheap

Spread a little happiness and cheer.

• Give every member of your family a hug. If they say ‘get off’ or ‘go away out of that’, grin and tell them: “hugs are healing” and carry on.

• Find out about short term volunteer work you can get involved with in your local or global community from Volunteering Ireland or activelink.ie

• Help with the washing up and some of the other household chores, as it should be a holiday for parents too.

• On a good afternoon, get out for a walk to a nice quiet favourite place. This could be a beach, park, mountain, hill, river, lake, holy well, secret place, etc.

• Think of any elderly person that lives alone in your area and visit them for an hour. This is an old Irish custom that we should help keep alive and Christmas is a lonely time for some folks.

• Build a bird table in your garden and put out a Christmas feast for the wild birds. Then keep feeding them throughout the year!

• If you drink or smoke, then plan to drink or smoke less and curb those nasty hangovers or dopey days.

• Spend an hour playing with a younger brother, sister or cousins.

• Write a letter, email or phone/ text an old friend that you have lost contact with.

• Bake some cookies for the family or flatamates, or better yet, get them to help out!

• Take 20 minutes for yourself on New Year’s Eve. Think about 3 things that happened in the past year that you felt or still feel bad about. This could be a way you acted in a situation or maybe something hurtful you did or said. Write them down on paper and then throw the paper in the fire. Vow to forget the bad feelings and if you have hurt someone, vow to apologise and not do it again.

• Also take the time to think about three things that you aspire to in the next year. This could be something like fighting less with your parents or brothers/ sisters, taking up a new sport or learning to truly appreciate your own qualities and talents. Seal your 3 aspirations in an envelope and store away. Then in the middle of June, open up the envelope and see how well you’ve done.

 

Do you have some Christmas spirit tips of your own? Comment below.

 

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