Are You Serious Clark?

Make Christmas Less Stressful

December 24, 2022

Good morning, this is Dynasty Dad your weekly dad newsletter that makes dadding smell sweeter than a freshly emptied RV toilet.

🚽This is your SPECIAL CHRISTMAS edition on connection: How To Make Christmas Less Stressful 🚽

Dad Joke(s) and Meme Of The Week

Dad Meme:

Dad Jokes:

This week there were too many good jokes to just pick one.

1/ How Much Did Santa's Sleigh Cost?

Nothing Because It Was On The House

2/ What are the best Christmas sweaters made from?

Fleece Navidad.

3/ What is Santa’s nationality?

He’s North Pole-ish

How To Make Christmas Less Stressful

Aaaah Christmas.

Ever feel like Clark Griswold from Christmas vacation?

Stressed out trying to find your family that perfect gift while juggling hanging Christmas lights, closing out the year at work, and hosting family (especially your weird cousin).

Here are five ways to make Christmas a little less stressful, keep our kids more grounded, and feel more connected: (NOTE: The blog here has examples of each)

1/ Sling soup at a soup kitchen: Serve people in need.

2/ Buy gifts for someone else's family: Adopt-a-family and be their secret Santa.

3/ Stoke the embers of a new ritual: Holidays are for traditions, start a new one.

4/ Learn a new party trick, as a family: Nothing brings a family together like all learning to whistle like a train.

5/ Don't do things do experiences: Who needs more things?

Let’s make the Holidays a little less stressful and get a bit more connected with our family by focusing on experiences rather than things.

How To Make Christmas Less Stressful — Tools For Busy Dads To Raise Great Kids. Starting With A Better You.

Aaaah Christmas. Ever feel like Clark Griswold from Christmas vacation? Stressed out trying to find your family that perfect gift while juggling hanging Christmas lights, closing out the year at work, and hosting family (especially your weird cousin)? Here are five ways to make Christma

https://dynastydad.com/blogs/make-christmas-less-stressful

This Week's Interesting Listen:

There are more parenting styles than combinations of an IKEA storage system. Some include permissive (do whatever the heck you want), authoritative (demanding yet supportive) or straight-up dictator to name a few.

Dr. Scott Grant shares that before focusing on which style of parenting is right for you it is important to focus on what is at the core of choosing a parenting style "to raise our kids to be the best version of themselves".

Here are my four takeaways from his podcast:

1/ We want to "be a better version of ourselves, so our kids can be the best version of themselves."

2/ Don't project ourselves on our children because our kids are not us, and we could be projecting our insecurities on them.

3/ Find ways to row in the same direction as our partners. One great way is to define core family values together.

4/ Once you and your partner identify core values use the words for the values you're trying to instill. Examples:

  • If your child lies, instead of saying, "don't lie, it is wrong," focus on a family value of 'honesty'. It might sound like, "we should always tell the truth because we value honesty in this family."

  • If one child calls another sibling a name, it might sound like, "we need to be kind because we value kindness in our family."

  • "If a friend calls for help we go and help because we value being helpful in this family."

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