holiday giftsRegardless of  personal spiritual beliefs, the holidays are a time when many of us gather with friends and families for celebration, rituals and often gift-giving.

It’s very common for females over 40 to begin questioning the necessity of stressful hustle and bustle during the holidays. We are at a time in our lives when we are getting to a new level of realizing all the materialistic hype is not worth it.

Is this you? Are you tired of doing the stuff-shopping? Ready to have a more meaningful experience with your family and friends?

What if this year instead of focusing on giving and getting THINGS you were to create a new tradition that focuses on what you truly love and appreciate about the people in your life?

This week I attended a wonderful gathering of females over 40 to raise money for military families and connect on this subject of reevaluating our relationship to the holidays.  We had a delightful motivational speaker, Christine Martinello, who introduced something called The Christmas Love Box.

Christine started a tradition that has brought so much joy to her own family year after year, she decided to create a way to share this with other families.

The idea is that each family member writes a “love note” to every other family member.

These love notes are from-the-heart expressions of what they love and appreciation. The notes are collected in the Christmas Love Box and on Christmas morning the box is passed around. Each family pulls a note out of the box and reads it aloud.  Hearing the note read aloud for all to hear expands the love expressed within the family.

Christine and her husband have created a beautiful kit that includes a lovely keepsake box, a colorfully illustrated book about the tradition and 30 love notes to be filled out.

You can watch a video and read more about this unique family tradition a their website The Christmas Love Box. Pass the love please! For those who don’t celebrate Christmas, this idea could be adapted to other holiday traditions as well!

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