Family happiness and little things we do

The actions we undertake daily and seem to be such ‘little things’ we do in our everyday life, go further than we anticipate in solidifying or weakening the relationships in families. At the end of the track they proof to be very important and a necessity to have been structured in solid clay.

Many may think that annual family vacations have to be going abroad and that we all have to be partakers of worldly traditional feasts, like Christmas celebrations and Valentine’s Day gift-giving practices which have become integral consumption rituals in contemporary families. These man made artificial celebrations are no guaranty to family happiness. It is a wrong idea to think a family can not be happy when it does not celebrate Christmas, Easter or any other heathen or so called Christian feast.

Those who want to keep to God’s Will and as such abstain from the heathen feasts like Halloween, Christmas, Easter, still can enjoy very happy moments together. All the material presents may be very nice surprises with bring joy, but they also can be given at other moments. And all family members should be aware that it is not the material which brings happiness, but the feeling of being together and sharing a happy time with each other.

We have been socialised by media, family and other social institutions to dedicate more attention to these rather conspicuous consumption experiences and have gradually become less concerned of the importance of the mundane, everyday consumption behaviour to our relationships and overall family wellbeing.

In many families we can see that parent buy their children. When divorced and one parent gives something the other parent want to give something more expensive and bigger.

we fail to recognise and appreciate the underpinning significance of these frequently taken-for-granted consumption experiences to happiness, satisfaction and stability in our family relationships. Instead we seek to construct family bonding through perhaps rather superficial, conspicuous consumption acts such as buying expensive gifts for loved ones, committing to elaborative annual family holidays and following extensive Christmas rituals.

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Preceding articles:

Families with four or more kids most happiest

How to Raise a Happy Child

 

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Additional reading:

1. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
2. Focus on outward appearances
3. Being Religious and Spiritual 8 Spiritual, Mystic and not or well religious
4. Holidays, holy days and traditions
5. Thanksgivukkah and Advent
6. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 6 Bonfire night
7. Halloween custom of the nations
8. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 1: Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet
9. Christian values, traditions, real or false stories, pure and upright belief
10. Why we do not keep to a Sabbath or a Sunday or Lord’s Day #3 Days to be kept holy or set apart
11. A season of gifts
12. Irminsul, dies natalis solis invicti, birthday of light, Christmas and Saturnalia
13. Wishing lanterns and Christmas
14. Christmas, Saturnalia and the birth of Jesus
15. God’s Special Gift
16. Christmas customs – Are They Christian?
17. The Evolution Of Passover–Past To Present
18. Who Celebrates Easter as Religious Holiday
19. Eostre, Easter, White god, chocolate eggs, Easter bunnies and metaphorical resurrection
20. Easter: Origins in a pagan Christ
21. 14-15 Nisan and Easter
22. 14 Nisan a day to remember #4 A Lamb slain
23. Easter holiday, fun and rejoicing
24. Not bounded by labels but liberated in Christ
25. Seven Bible Feasts of JHWH

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• CFP: IMPAG XVI, The archaeology of consumption in Ireland c.1550-1950
• Hop On Board the Easter Bunny Express
• Gift Jealous of Gift
• WELL, THAT HAPPENED: Hallow-weenies
• Christmas vs. Halloween
• ‘Pumpkin creep’: Orange-you glad it’s nearly October?
• If a relative doesn’t give, should he or she still get?
• How the Catholic Church included paganism to create Easter, Christmas, Good Friday
• Ready or Not, Christmas Shopping Has Begun

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