New Year’s Resolutions. So easy to make. So easy to forget about by January 5th. Why? Because as adults, we’re accepting of the New Year’s resolutions joke – nobody expects you to actually keep them.

Wouldn’t it be great if somewhere along the line we were taught to actually do just that? If you have kids, you have the opportunity to teach them not only how to make resolutions, but how to keep them, too.

Limit the Number of Resolutions

A long list of resolutions is simply too overwhelming. That’s probably one of the reasons most adults don’t keep their resolutions. How many habits would you have to change to loose weight, get organized, remember to phone your mother once a week, get the living room painted, and finally reconcile your checkbook all within the few days of a new year?

Young children should focus on one thing they want to improve and older children should limit it to two or three. Talk with your children about what is most important and focus on those. Then maybe take your own advice and set few for yourself, too.

Last weekend my husband and I took our boys out to dinner and a movie. While we were waiting for our food at the restaurant, we started to make a list of all the things we wanted to do before New Year’s Eve. We each got a say in what we really wanted to do this holiday season. The list was long, and getting longer as each minute went by.

My husband stopped me. “Now you’re just putting things on the list to put them on the list.” He was right. I crossed out the things that weren’t important to any of us.

It’s so easy to fill up the calendar during the holidays with every activity and invite that’s offered. But it doesn’t necessarily make the holidays more enjoyable. It often makes them simply busier.

Simply Busier

There’s an oxymoron. Shouldn’t we be looking for ways to make our holidays simply simpler? If you want to simplify your holiday to-do list, here are seven tips for creating simplicity in the holidays.

1: Make The Dreaded To-do List
You can’t simplify the list until you have one. There’s nothing wrong with a to-do list unless it includes stuff you really don’t want to do.