Perhaps it is these bright and joyful moments that your child will remember, with warmth he will remember them after many years and will keep them in his family.

Here are some ideas for traditions, rituals, and just plain little things to take note of.


- Celebrating the New Year with your family (this year is more relevant than ever).

- Make an Advent calendar or countdown to New Years.

- Craft Christmas decorations and make a figurine of an animal symbolizing the coming year.

- On the eve of the holiday, hide small gifts or notes from Santa Claus under the pillow for the child.

- Place the harbingers of the holiday around the apartment.

- A week before the New Year, give up everything tasty, so that the holiday treats bring real joy not only to children, but also to adults!

- Collect unnecessary things and take them to charities.

- Send homemade greeting cards.

- Go to the library before the New Year and choose there a thematic book that you will read every evening.

- Put on the shelf books about Christmas, New Year and simply on winter themes. Read them on the eve of the holiday and throughout the winter, and then clean them up again. Every year, find new books that are suitable for children by age.

- Make a photo album with pictures of the most interesting and significant events of this year. Before the holiday, watch the albums of previous years.

- Write down on paper the most sad, offensive and unpleasant moments of the past year, especially if they disturb your child (or you), and burn the list.

- Write a list of promises and desires for the next year. Read it next year and celebrate what we did. You can also cut and paste pictures from magazines if your child cannot write.
- Before the New Year, change something in the interior of the house: rearrange furniture or replace covers and upholstery on it, change curtains, tablecloths, towels or a shower curtain.

- For a holiday, get a New Year's service and a tablecloth. For example, handmade.

- Make New Year's costumes for all family members and pets.

- Every year arrange a photo session for the whole family, including grandparents and other close relatives. Or just take pictures every year against the background of the Christmas tree. Over time, there will be more and more such photos, and it will be very interesting to watch how family members change.

- Make a photo album with pictures of significant events of the outgoing year. Remember and discuss the happiest moments.

- Dress up the Christmas tree, prepare salads and decorate the apartment with good New Year's songs. It can be the soulful retro hits of Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong or old Soviet songs.

- Bake gingerbread or cookies. Collect all kinds of baking tins and decorations and make as many different gingerbread cookies as you can. Put them all in one bag and invite the guests to take out a gingerbread: what has fallen, is waiting for them in the coming year. You will have to show a lot of imagination to come up with what a squirrel, a clown, an asterisk or a house mean. Also, gingerbread can be hung on the tree and, starting from January 1st, eat one piece at a time, and when there is not a single gingerbread left, remove the tree.

- The youngest member of the family starts decorating the tree. The first one is to hang a homemade toy, for example, with the symbol of the coming year. Or start decorating the tree with a new toy every year.

- When the Christmas tree is decorated, the whole family gather, say in chorus: "Christmas tree, light up!" and include a garland.

- Think of how to give gifts on New Year's: discreetly put gifts under the Christmas tree so that the child opens them the night before or on New Year's Eve, put gifts in one large bag and then distribute to everyone, Santa Claus gives gifts, the child finds gifts under the Christmas tree on the next morning.

- Make peace with friends and relatives before the New Year, ask for forgiveness, so as not to bear resentment in the coming year.

- To thank each of those gathered at the table for some specific spiritual qualities or actions. Or just take turns saying compliments and kind words to each other.