With your kids out of the house, has the start of the holiday season brought up some melancholy for you? Do the new decorations in the stores and the change in the weather make you feel blue? If this is an unusual feeling for you, it may be because you have less bustle and little ones running around your house to share the holiday excitement with.
So how do we cope with these new empty nester holiday blues?
Volunteer
When our houses were full during the holidays, there was always something for us to do or cook, someone for us to help or take care of. When our home becomes an empty nest, we may miss that feeling of being needed. We may miss helping others.
What better way for us to remedy this feeling than to volunteer! Even though our kids may not need us as much, does not mean that there aren’t many others who could use our help.
Make new traditions
There are many traditions that you did with your children that you may no longer be able to do. This is the perfect opportunity to fill those traditional gaps with new ones with your spouse!
Maybe instead of watching “A Christmas Story” for the billionth time while making holiday cookies, you snuggle up with your spouse and watch a new holiday movie.
Don’t force the old traditions
This new start for your children also means that more change is most likely coming. They may have ideas of new traditions they want to start or ways to change the old ones.
Choose one or two traditions that you can negotiate to still have and adjust to the ones they would like to do differently.
After all, it’s not about the traditions, it’s about the quality time you spend with them.
Enjoy the time you have with your kids
With an empty nest may also mean that you do not get to spend the entire holiday with your kids. They may want to spend part of a holiday at their friend’s house or their significant other’s house. This is okay.
We have to sometimes share time with other families. This is all the more reason to make the time you do have extra special. Be present. Enjoy.
Breathe new life into the holidays.
If the holidays with an empty nest may make you feel blue, breathe new life into them. Make them something to look forward to.
What do we mean by this?
Perhaps when your kids are at another family’s house for the holidays this year, you and your spouse go on a skiing vacation! Or maybe every other year instead of spending Christmas at home, the whole family takes a Christmas vacation together!
The holidays can be rough with an empty nest. But with patience, flexibility, and a little creativity, these holidays can be some of the best yet!
Holidays making your nest feel extra empty?