There’s No Copyright On Holiday Traditions!
Well, for the most part there’s no copyright on holiday traditions. The Happy Birthday song used to require royalties; that’s why places like Chili’s always have goofy birthday jingles they sing at you. Otherwise they had to pay. But even the birthday song is royalty free for private events, and its copyright status recently expired. Beyond that, you can try all manner of new traditions for your holiday gatherings this year.
Thanksgiving is a great time for family togetherness that doesn´t always include tons of gifts, rest, relaxation, and of course, eating. There’s a human condition, though, that can’t be ignored: the fear of the same old thing. Everybody wants variety. Certainly variety for variety’s sake isn’t always good, but it’s not wrong to mix things up on occasion.
If you haven’t, this year you might try a few tradition shifts for Thanksgiving. It might make things more fun and festive. You want harmony during the holidays, but you’re going to have family and humanity at your table. Don’t expect something won’t happen. Outthink it, expect the worst, hope for the best, and remember that the important thing is being together for a time.
Whether or not it goes how you intend, this togetherness is still key. Shaking things up can help get people out of their yearly rut, and might make things more agreeable this year. Following are a few oddball traditions, as well as a list you might consult for more ideas.
1. Give Out Awards
Oftentimes, especially among adult families, holidays represent a time when relatives get together and sort of touch base with one another. Thanksgiving is kind of like the gateway to the holidays, as it’s the most family-oriented. It often involves your family group meeting with relatives you don’t see every day.
You might make it a tradition to pass out awards based on thankfulness, or something similar. Maybe you talk about goals you all have gone after during the year. Maybe you give these gifts just as memorabilia. You might order custom Thanksgiving coins from an e-shop like Embleholics.
Especially if you’re having a larger than usual get-together this year, one functioning almost as a family reunion, you want to ensure that the event is remembered. Memory is one of the finest gifts, in the long run; and with little coins, placards, pictures, and event books, you can help preserve it.
2. Maybe Don’t Cook Every Other Year
Everybody loves a home cooked meal. But people don’t like it when the matriarch of the household has her hair on fire and lasers shooting out her eyes. Fixing a big Thanksgiving dinner for close and extended family is a lot of work, and it can be stressful. Maybe you make it a tradition to help Mom out in the kitchen.
Maybe she doesn’t want that, because you and the other goons in the house don’t know what you’re doing. Perhaps you have food catered one year just to give her a break, and tell her how thankful you are for what she does. A lot of moms don’t realize it’s more important to be present, than to put on the perfect dinner.
This is a time for family, and we already spend too much of that time engaged with varying tech devices. You don’t have to do it every year, but it might be worth while to have a different kind of meal this year. If you don’t buy out, you might change up the main course and have something else besides the turkey. The spirit of Thanksgiving isn’t in the bird, after all; it’s in the togetherness, and the giving of thanks for another year of life and, hopefully, productivity.
3. Maybe Combine Holidays Every Couple Years
Especially if you’re doing a family reunion, the logistics involved can be expensive. But young children traveling and meeting cousins for the first time will find fun enough during the event; you can save money on Christmas presents by making a vacation the gift. You might combine Thanksgiving and Christmas, meeting together for a few weeks between November and December as an extended family.
Depending on your schedules, you might find it makes more sense to do things this way. Of course, this might not be a luxury for all; but if you have a long event, those who can’t make it at one time might come at another.
You might also think about reserving a hotel or something with the family for a week. This way you can funnel what you would have spent on Christmas presents to a family event that represents everybody’s gift for the year. This is a good way to cut down what you spend on the holidays.
Being Together
The holidays come around once a year. Sometimes this can be stressful, but it shouldn’t be. Here’s a list of some more off-beat Thanksgiving traditions to consider this year, or maybe for a future holiday. Everybody has a family somewhere. Whatever you do, find ways of making family time central to your holidays.
