Extra Mile Hospitality: Three Ways to Connect Deeper This Season

This is a paid post contributed by a Patch Community Partner. The views expressed in this post are the author's own, and the information presented has not been verified by Patch.

After two years of a pandemic, the holiday season is a much-needed time to reconnect with those we love and to celebrate everything we have to be grateful for. It’s also a great time to strengthen the relationships that matter to you while reaching out to people who may be feeling especially disconnected. As you prepare for the holiday whirlwind of shopping, decorating and cooking, here are a few ways to go the extra mile and nurture those relationships in an extra-special way.

Include someone new

With all the turbulence of the past two years, we may all be feeling understandably nervous about being around new people. But while it's good to take care of ourselves and our loved ones, the holidays are also a good time to remember the people who could use some extra love and inclusion.

Going through college, I struggled with family difficulties that made it hard to go home. I’ll never forget the year my roommate invited me home with her for Christmas. I walked in the door to be greeted by a large Italian family with enough food on the table for an army. I’ll never forget how that room full of people and plate full of food provided me with a much-needed moment of comfort.

This holiday season as you’re meal-planning and thinking about your head count, why not do something radical and include someone totally new? Maybe that’s a neighbor, a young person who can’t be with their family or young parents who are struggling with the loss of a job?

Make handmade gifts

Before long, it will be time to pull out a notepad and make a list of Christmas gifts. Online shopping carts will start to fill up and our weekends may soon become a blur of driving from one store to another, checking items off our list.

I love shopping too, but this year, I’ve been taking pottery classes and I have a stack of imperfect bowls that I plan to paint and give away. This year, why not try something similar and invest time and money into making gifts for your loved ones instead of buying everything? Your personal touch and creativity is something money could never buy and handmade gifts tend to be much more memorable.

Not sure where to start? Check out this article for some ideas.

Make time to tell family stories

Few things deepen family connections more than stories. This year, why not pull down the photo albums from the attic and spend an hour or two one night talking through them? If all of your family photos are digital, this could be a good time to dust off a real camera and start your first analogue photo album. (P.S. Please call Surv if you need help getting things down from your attic!)

Alternatively, pulling out some family recipes and telling stories about them is a great way to help younger relatives learn the story of their family through food. Christmas decorations are another opportunity to bring family stories and traditions alive or to start one if your family doesn’t have any traditions yet. Hanging special ornaments, centering design around one particular color or creating new decorations in honor of certain family members are simple ways to add depth to the holiday season.

If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s that relationships are what matter most. Our connections to friends, family and neighbors is what sustains us through the good times and bad.

But relationships are like flowers in a garden...they need love and attention to grow and sometimes an extra dose of both. The holidays give us the perfect opportunity to pay a little special attention to our loved ones while courageously including those we don’t know yet.

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