Do you feel a sense of sadness or disappointment when the holidays end? Maybe the Christmas season had you riding high on twinkling lights, sugar cookies, and general merry making. But, after we round the corner to a new year, the lights are taken down, the family gatherings cease, and we are left in a house still recovering from the Christmas mess, it’s easy for our hearts to feel as empty as the toy boxes piled in the trash can.

What now? How do we keep a light spirit on the drive home when we don’t have lighted porches and trees to brighten the darkness that pervades the evenings. How do we find inspiration when we don’t have nativity scenes and advent wreaths reminding us of the greatest gift ever given?

Do we just drag through the first few cold months of the year until the spring blooms blossom hope in our hearts again? I think there’s a better way to approach the cold winter months. There is beauty, joy, and hope in every season. Opportunities for fun, memories, and growth do not freeze with the weather.

Winter brings a certain quiet stillness in nature as the animals and plants tuck themselves away, preparing for the busy growing seasons ahead. We can follow suit. January and February can be a time of rest, reflection, and preparation for us, too. Life is just a bit slower this time of year. Youth sports, school events, and after-school activities are at a minimum, especially with young children. It seems like much of society in work and play use this time after the holiday hustle to take a breath.

This is the time to teach children to reflect on the past year and dream about the year to come. It’s the perfect opportunity for parents and children to make plans for the year and get on the same page about goals, intentions, or desires.

Here are 5 ideas to keep the fun going and help your family grow in spirit and closeness during the first quarter of the year. Choose one or try them all. Just spend some intentional time reflecting and dreaming as a family. After all, no lives are more intertwined than the lives that share a home.

1. Film family interviews

A fun way to help children reflect on the past year is by doing annual interviews. I like doing video interviews, especially with my young children. Two of my children need quite a bit of help writing, so a worksheet of questions would take a lot of time. Doing the interviews on video is so much more enjoyable for all of us. Plus, I like the idea of having those recordings of my children’s little voices, giggling and sharing their lives and dreams. Imagine how sweet that will be to watch when they grow up! 

You can find a plethora of questions for this across the internet. Healthy Happy Impactful blog has quite a few that could inspire interviews with younger and older kids. Here’s some of my favorite for my young children:

• Who is your best friend?
• What is your favorite color?
• What is your favorite movie and song this year?
• What is your favorite thing to do?
• What do you want to be when you grow up?
• When were you happiest this year?
• What was the hardest thing about this year?
• What was the nicest thing you did for someone this year?
• What was the nicest thing someone did for you this year?
• What was something that surprised you this year?
• What do you wish had happened this year that did not happen?
• What would you do next year if you knew you could not fail?

2. Make a family bucket list

Plan the big things your family would like to do this year, and be sure to get your children’s input! Want to take a family vacation? Ask the kids where they would like to go or what they would like to do while you’re there. You might discover a child wants to take gymnastics lessons or play a new sport. Maybe you decide to go on a family hike once a month or take walks together after dinner every evening. Your family may want to learn how to make the perfect homemade pizza or try every ice cream shop within a 15-mile radius. You might want to visit the zoo in the spring or take a Christmas train ride next December. 

Of course, your kids will probably come up with more ideas than you can actually accomplish, but it’s good to find out what they are interested in and excited about. You can decide together what is really feasible. It will give the children something to look forward to throughout the year and a confidence boost from knowing they had good ideas that contributed to the family fun.

3. Set personal goals

Teach children to set goals. Help them think about what they want to learn and how they want to grow in the next year. What do they want their year to look like? How do they want to feel about themselves and their year when they get to the end of December? This is a great opportunity to teach them how to dream big and break down those dreams into small, achievable goals. Even better if you can plan ways to support each other, too.

4. Start a family calendar

Buy some kind of paper calendar and start scheduling all you can! Include dates and times to accomplish bucket list items. Mark your family nights, one-on-one time with each child, and even play dates with friends as much as you can. If you know you’re taking a vacation or have some other significant event this year, add it to the calendar so your kids can see it. Be sure to mark birthdays, too. Are there any summer camps, sports activities, or lessons in the works for your kids? Add those items to the calendar if you know the dates. If not, at least talk about them and the general time of year they will happen to help your children think ahead. 

I’m a big fan of digital calendars that are easily accessible at all times through my phone. However, I suggest a paper family calendar that’s easy for children to see any time. My children love to look at the calendar and see what’s coming up each week. Plus, it saves me from answering the “Mama, what are we doing tomorrow?” or “Mama, how long until we go on vacation?” questions five zillion times.

5. Discuss a family spiritual growth plan

How can you intentionally foster the values of faith, prayer, scripture, and thanksgiving in your children? If you don’t already, make plans to pray with your children daily. Find a family devotional your children can get excited about and decide when you will do it each week.

We went through Roma Downey’s Little Angels Bible Storybook last year, and the kids loved it! It’s especially geared toward a toddler and preschool audience, but even my older boys enjoyed the stories. The Parent Cue offers free devotionals each week for every age that you can download or view through the Parent Cue app. We love Parent Cue. Their devotionals are not complicated but offer Biblical truths in ways that are easy for kids to understand.

We find it easiest to do daily devotionals right after school (with a snack, of course) or weekly devotionals during weekly family nights. These prayer and family devotional times don’t have to be elaborate. Sometimes you can do a quick 5-minute devotional each day and maybe a 15-minute one once a week. Decide what you can do consistently and do your best to stick to it. Talk to your children about these plans. Get them involved in the process. Let them know by your words and your actions how important it is to grow spiritually.

Does your family have a New Year’s tradition? I would love to hear about it! Tell us in the comments!