"In the years when my kids were young, the weekends between Thanksgiving and New Year's were packed with holiday activities, leaving me exhausted and counting the days until they went back to school in January. The elation of Santa's arrival was paired with too-early wakeups and too many presents to assemble late at night. I loved seeing the joy in their eyes when they opened that LEGO set or butterfly-growing kit, but man, it was exhausting."
"Then came the tween years, which had me begging for someone - anyone - to join me on our annual drive through the neighborhood to look for the best holiday lights. These were the years when everything seemed like forced family fun, and I had to resort to heavy bribery (or light threats) to get anyone to come along. My teens have come back around"
"It was only in the last year or so that I've seen a change in my kids. It started with my 18-year-old daughter planning a trip to the pumpkin patch with her high school friends. I had resigned myself to grocery-store pumpkins the last few years, as nobody seemed excited to make the effort to visit the pumpkin patch (and I wasn't paying pumpkin-patch prices for grumpy kids)."
A mother of three teens (ages 14 to 18) organized many holiday traditions, including train rides and mall photos with Santa, and found the season joyful but exhausting. Weekends between Thanksgiving and New Year's were packed with activities, late-night present assembly, and early wakeups, producing fatigue despite children's excitement. During the tween years the children resisted family traditions, requiring bribery or light threats to join holiday outings like neighborhood light drives. Recently the teens rekindled interest in seasonal activities, evidenced by an 18-year-old planning a pumpkin patch visit with friends and renewed participation in decorating and outings.
Read at Business Insider
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