Heartfelt Holidays: Our Favorite Traditions for Fun & Deeper Connection

Gigi: Hello, Makena.

Makena: Hello, Gigi.

Gigi: We’re going to see each other soon, right?

Makena: We are. I’m looking forward to it.

Gigi: We’ve seen each other a lot in the last few months. We just got back from Sedona. Now we’re headed out to Berkeley, and we will have our whole family there, which is super exciting with five kids.

Makena: Yeah, five grown children, all the significant others, and all the grandkids. 

Gigi: So it’s five, five, so…

Makena: 15 plus you.

Gigi: Right? Yes, 16 of us. So, our tribe is growing. Oh my gosh.

We’re very, very happy because, as many families probably have the issue where once you get partners, we have to share you. You have to go to the other family members some years. This is something that’s more rare now. 

We used to always make sure we were together at Christmas. 

So this is a special year, and we’re looking forward to it. We’ve got all our plans, which we love. We love to plan our holidays, right? I don’t know how the partners feel about that, but we do.

Makena: Well, we know a lot of you are probably going home and have mixed feelings about that. There are different kinds of family dynamics, and it may be a stressful time when you go home and spend that time with family. 

Hopefully, some of the things we’ll share today, whether you love getting together with your family or it’s stressful for you, can bring a new dimension and feeling to the holidays.

Gigi: Yeah, we always try to make it different and fun. I like to do that so it’s a little unpredictable. Of course, there are some rituals. Sometimes we win, and sometimes we lose. But at least we have lots of great moments. 

So, we’ll go into some of the things we will share about different ways we’re connecting this year and things we’ve used previously. You can pick and choose what you like.

Makena: The point is really to create those moments. It’s easy to get together and fall into hanging out, talking, and opening presents, or whatever your traditions are. 

This gives you ways to create special moments. 

Even if you take one of these or find your own, it becomes a memory for your family, a moment of deeper connection.

Gigi: Yeah. I think the distinction here is that it’s great to hang around and talk without a schedule, and we definitely do that as well. 

But sometimes, the reason I started doing this is because we would get together during the holidays, and I’d realize there were certain people I barely talked to the whole time.

When we started creating different ways to connect, we really had to engage with each other, and, as you said, there was a richer experience. I got to connect with all of my children and grandkids because I made specific plans with them.

That’s one tradition I’ve started with the grandkids. I already have five, and I think I’m going to have many more. 

When I go to Berkeley, for example, I take my grandson Max and do something special with him alone. 

Then I take Mia and do something special with her, and I do the same thing with the other grandkids.

This one-on-one time is very special because it creates a real connection. It’s not happening in the middle of everything else, where we’re often less connected, or they’re distracted.

Makena: I love that idea. Something else we’re doing, which a lot of people do–and we’re doing it because our family has gotten so big–is Secret Santa. Instead of buying gifts for everyone, which could be overwhelming, we pick names and buy gifts for just that one person.

Whoever’s name you pick, that’s your person. Of course, we usually buy for our significant others and the kids as well.

Gigi, you had a nice idea to make Secret Santa even more meaningful. Do you want to share that?

Gigi: Yeah, I want everyone to write a letter to the person they chose and say something to them–an acknowledgment, a way they appreciate them, or something they see about them. It makes it more personalized and creates a special moment.

We all love to hear wonderful things about ourselves, and it creates that feeling of connection, right? 

We talked about this in previous episodes–when you write something like that, it’s usually touching, and people really remember it.

Makena: I love that idea. Also, a couple of logistical things about how we made Secret Santa work this year for such a large group: We used a site called Elfster–E-L-F-S-T-E-R. Elfster.com makes it really easy to put everyone’s names in and have them pull names.

Then, I created a Google Doc. In Google Drive, you can share a document with everyone. We put all the names of the people participating in Secret Santa in that Google Doc, so they could list the things they wanted.

We set a deadline of Thanksgiving week in the U.S.–right before Black Friday–to get their lists in. That way, everyone had one place to check for gift ideas. It was also really helpful for significant others and others who might be struggling to figure out what people wanted for Christmas.

What were you going to say?

Gigi: That’s why we love having organizers in our family! I would never create a Google Doc.

Makena: You’d be texting lists and accidentally revealing Secret Santas.

Gigi: So it does work if you have someone that loves to put details together, and you have them structure this. It gives them a job, and they’re really good at it, and it really supports them.

Everyone–and I’m telling you, it worked, even though I asked, I think, five times, “Where was that link again for that?”

Makena: Yes, so that’s our first tradition–Secret Santa–which many people do. 

Again, I love this addition of a letter to the person that you have Secret Santa for, to just, you know, make it a more meaningful thing. Not just to give them a gift, but a moment. 

So I love that.

What’s another one, Gigi? I know this next one we have on our list is something that you really, I think, champion. So tell us about it.

Gigi: So, ask everyone one thing they would like to do. And the reason why I came up with this is, as our family started to grow, and as the girls started to grow, they got married, and they had partners. 

When their partners started joining us for Christmas, sometimes the guys who were new to the family were just like, “Oh my gosh, these people are over the top.”

Right? We like it! 

And some of them had never–I mean, you can ask them–they were like, “I’ve never experienced anything like this.” 

But there are parts of it, I think, that they really loved and parts they maybe didn’t love so much.

What I noticed is that sometimes they wanted to do something, but they didn’t get to share that before we came together. And it caused stress or strain, or maybe everyone didn’t feel like they got to participate the way they wanted to in their holidays.

So now, we ask everyone, “What’s one thing you want to do?” Of course, it can’t be too elaborate. 

With the kids, we can’t go to Disneyland for Christmas, right? But it can be something within the context of our time together, like where we go to eat, or if the guys want to watch football, or if certain people want to have time to themselves. 

Whatever it is that they share, we try to make it happen.

We make sure that everyone feels like, even though we are doing things together, they also get to have a say about what they want to do and how they want to create their holiday. And I think that just relaxes tension in a lot of ways because everyone feels heard. 

That’s a big part of things.

Makena: Yeah. So it’s very collaborative. And then we create kind of a schedule or a flow, and it can change. But, you know, everybody knows what the overall flow is, and then people can see if they want to participate or stay back for certain things.

But yeah, it’s super fun. 

Gigi: I think that’s also an important part, Makena, because, you know, not to generalize, but I think often the men want to know, like, “Well, what are we doing?” You know, because I’ve had so many of them say that, like, “What’s going on here?” 

And I think when we do put a loose schedule down, it supports them. They can visually see it, and they don’t feel like they’re just kind of going along for the ride.

So I think that’s such an important thing that we do. It just makes it more relaxing and more fun.

Makena: Nice. Awesome. We also do cooking teams. So this is something where–I can’t remember–I know we did this at my wedding. Also, we’ve done this for a lot of different things. 

I don’t remember when or where it started exactly, but basically, this is the idea: you get different teams together. It could be the partners, each kind of little family, or it could be other ways you put the teams together. And you pick certain meals, and different people make that meal. 

So, they decide if they have breakfast, that they want to make eggs and bacon, or they want to make French toast, or whatever that is. And that’s their meal. 

Sometimes, they even do the grocery shopping for it and everything else. Or maybe you make one big list, and everybody just pitches in. 

That really makes it so people aren’t scrambling at the meals, and not everybody is buying their own groceries and trying to figure all that out.

Another couple, or whoever it might be, might have lunch, and they do, let’s say tacos. So that really puts structure into the meals and makes it so those are basically handled, and everybody only has to cook one meal, for the most part. 

Depends on how big your family is. 

Gigi: And the cool thing about this–you know, I know when I was growing up, so much of when we would go to Christmas at my home, my family, my mother carried so much of the weight of Christmas. Even though we would bring something, she’d be in there cooking for days.

And if you really love that, there’s nothing wrong with that. But this also supports the person who’s hosting and allows them to know they’re going to get help and support. 

You can create your cooking teams so the guys all cook a meal together, or the girls do, or you can have the teenagers cook breakfast for everyone.

You can make it fun. It’s an opportunity to connect in a different way and be playful. We put on music and have fun when we do it. It also helps different people connect who maybe wouldn’t normally connect so much.

Makena: Yeah. And I loved your idea, Gigi, about the kids and how to get them involved, maybe not in cooking a full meal, depending on their ages. But what did you say about that?

Gigi: Yeah, it’s great. My granddaughter loves to make coffee for everybody. So, you know, in the morning, she can be the coffee–she can be our barista. And then maybe we have older grandkids who can support there.

It gives the kids the opportunity to be in service to the adults, which is really fun and lets them feel like they are participating in a way that’s very grown up.

Makena: So basically giving the kids some kind of role, some kind of thing. You could talk to them, ask them, or give them different ideas and let them choose a way to be involved. They’re also being of service. Very nice.

Gigi: Yeah. You want to talk about the family TED Talks we did a few times?

Makena: Yeah, this was a really fun one. I think you had found this one.

Gigi: No, I think Tiffany did.

Makena: Tiffany. Okay. Tiffany–our oldest sister, Gigi’s oldest daughter, Tiffany. 

So, years ago, we were getting together for Christmas, and this was, I think, the first year–I think the first year that I brought Sunny. So it was probably like eight years ago.

The first year I brought Sunny, Brianna brought her husband, and Tiffany was already with her husband. So we had met him, but it was the first year. And I think Mariah–well, we all met our partners within a year of each other. 

So, it was the first year we all got together. All the women in our family had met our significant others if we weren’t already with them.

We got together in Austin and rented an Airbnb because we were living all over the place, and we wanted different ways to connect and have fun. 

So Tiffany had found this article about doing family TED Talks.

The idea is, if you’ve ever watched a TED Talk, it’s a short talk. We let ours be a little longer–I think they were up to 20 minutes. I’m not sure how long TED Talks are exactly, but ours were up to 20 minutes.

Basically, we each got to pick a topic–anything at all that we wanted to teach, demonstrate, or do with the family. 

We spent an afternoon where everybody did their TED Talks, and we had quite the variety.

We had everything from How to Eat Tacos for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, which was actually a cooking demonstration by Brianna–my sister–and tasting. 

Gigi: Mike and Brianna did that one. Right? 

Makena: That was super fun. And then Mike did a talk on Conscious Consumerism, which was on a very different end of the spectrum and really fascinating.

Did you share what you did?

Gigi: No, I think I did something fun, also demonstrating something.

Makena: Yeah. What else? We had Wim Hof breathing. I remember my brother was really into Wim Hof, and he taught everybody. He led everyone through a Wim Hof breathing session.

We had a whole variety of different topics. It was super, super fun.

Gigi: We had one that was on How to Take Time for Self-Care, I think it was. And Traditions Around the World–different traditions.

Makena: Yeah, so lots of different topics.

It was super fun. And that became something that we did a couple of different times–at least two or three different years. And it was super, super fun.

What about one of your favorites, Gigi? The gratitude circle–the gratitude dinner.

Gigi: Yeah, we talked about this more toward Thanksgiving.

But the one where, at the dinner table, during the meal, everybody turns to the person to their left and tells them either what they’re grateful for or something about that person–something they really see in that person. It’s kind of like an appreciation and gratitude moment.

And again, those are so powerful because people just don’t normally talk to us like that. You know, we think those things, but we don’t say them. And often, the person you’re sitting next to might be someone you don’t even know that well. So they really have to look and see what they’ve observed about you or know about you that’s special.

Then they verbally share that. It’s such a sweet way to connect. It’s always moving. We always have people who end up crying at the dinner–happy tears–and people really love it.

Makena: Yeah, super fun. Love that one.

So, something we’ve done many times as a family is question cards. You can buy decks of these cards or make them yourself. 

You can go on ChatGPT and ask for good connection questions for a family over the holidays, and it will give you ideas. 

You can put the questions on note cards, or there are many different decks out there.

We used to use a deck called, Vertellis, right?

Gigi: That’s a Dutch brand.

Makena: Yeah. There are so many brands. But if you just Google “question cards” or look on Amazon or something like that, you’ll find lots of different ones. They’re basically different conversation starters, right? 

You can make it an activity where people sit around, and someone pulls a card, and everybody answers it. Or one person pulls a card and answers it, and each person goes around and answers a different question.

Something my husband loves to do is go through question card decks and find really good questions. He sorts through them and picks the ones he thinks will be great. Actually, we do this anytime his family comes to visit. If we want a deeper conversation topic or we’re going to dinner and want some things in our back pocket–because we’ve been spending a lot of time together–it’s a way to go deeper.

And then, Gigi, you wanted to add something fun to this, this year.

Gigi: I wanted everybody to get in their PJs and have hot cocoa when we do the question cards. The question cards are awesome, and they’re also a great way to learn things about people you’ve known your whole life–your parents, your children–things that you just would never know otherwise.

You know, this is another thing of mine. I think people go through life, right? I’ve had this life, and your family or your children know such a small percentage about your life, really. 

And, you know, when–like, both my parents have passed–and you think, “Oh my gosh, I wish I would have asked more questions about this. So, I would have understood more. Understood them better.” 

And I think this is a beautiful way to integrate that into your holidays or just into your life. Like you said, Makena, when your in-laws come, because you just learn more and more–a little bit more–about people. And yeah, it just adds depth to the relationship.

Makena: Yeah, something Sunny did the last time his parents were in town–or I think it was maybe just his mom–was, I was like, “Why don’t the two of you go to dinner one night?” 

Because, of course, we’re all spending time together, but she wants that quality time with him as well. So, I said, “Why don’t the two of you go to dinner?”

And I told him, “Why don’t you ask her questions about her childhood or her younger years?”–which he loves to do anyway. He spent the whole dinner asking her questions, and she loved it. She felt so connected, and they had such a great time.

It’s just a really lovely way–kind of like you’re saying, Gigi–with parents or people in your life. We’re digressing a little bit from the holiday version, but there are so many different ways you can use these kinds of question cards or different questions. 

That’s a really meaningful one if you do have your parents or other people in your life that you want to get to know better or go deeper with.

Gigi: Yeah, I actually bought a little deck for a client of mine, just gave it to her over the weekend. And she just sent me a message and said, “Oh my gosh!” It was for her and the kids–and they have young kids, all under 10. 

They have three kids, and she said it was already so much fun. The kids loved it and loved answering the questions, and it was just a great family activity for them.

Makena: That’s awesome.

So we have one more we want to share with you. We have many, many here, and you can go back and listen and write down your favorites. This one is something you’ve always championed.

And it’s interesting–I’ll say about this one that I did a kind of nervous system regulation program in the last couple of years. One of the things they had you do was really think back to positive memories in your life. 

The easiest ones for me to remember were Christmas memories or holiday memories.

So one of my favorites is the one we’re about to share here. Do you want to talk about what you would love to have us do?

Gigi: Yeah. Sing Christmas songs. I mean, you know, it’s just really getting the whole family singing. And again, if you have young ones, they love this. They love this, love this, love this. And then we add, you know, Brianna plays the guitar, Ira plays the guitar.

Maybe somebody plays the piano. And if you have family members that play instruments, you can bring those in and do it. You sing Christmas carols, and we do it for an evening, and it’s so much fun. And like I said, the little ones just love it, love it, love it.

And it just brings this feeling of togetherness. I think singing is such a beautiful way to connect as well. It doesn’t matter if you sing well or you don’t sing well. It’s a time of connection–that’s what it’s all about. Music is a beautiful way to connect.

We do this one, and Makena, you did something so special when you were young. What age were you when you did the book?

Makena: I think I must’ve been like 10. Probably 10. Yeah. 

Gigi: Tell them what you did there.

Makena: Well, this was early internet days, right? When formatting was not really easy to do. We had early Microsoft Word. I would research–I don’t even know if we had Google. I don’t know when Google started. No, I don’t think so.

I would research whatever search engines were back then, different Christmas carols, and I’d find the lyrics. Then, I would put them into early Microsoft Word, format them, and center them on the page. Then I went to whatever office store was around back then and found this really pretty Christmas paper.

I printed out all the lyrics to all the different Christmas carols and put them into a binder. 

So it was a binder of Christmas carol lyrics, all the ones we enjoyed, with all the verses in there–because, you know, there are often verses people don’t know. Then I gave that to a bunch of people for Christmas, different family members, so everybody had a binder.

I still have mine somewhere.

Gigi: I have mine, too.

Makena: With all the Christmas lyrics. These days, you don’t need that; you can just go on your phone in two seconds and find it. But it was really a fun project back then.

Gigi: So then it gave us our little books we had when we were at Christmas to sing to.

Makena: Yeah. And I think it’s important, coming back to the way I opened this tradition, which is talking about nervous system regulation. 

It’s interesting to note that singing the songs was one of the things that stood out most in my memories because music is powerful. It carries so much emotion and is really connected to memory as well.

I would actually put on my headphones, listen to different Christmas songs, and go back and relive these memories. It wasn’t from a particular year or anything like that. But even if you aren’t as close with your family, or if there’s some tension, a lot of times people can come together over music.

Even if it’s not Christmas carols, if your family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, it can be something else. Have a night where everyone picks a song they love, plays it on the speakers, and everyone sings along if they know it. 

Music is just such a bonding–what would you say?–such a bonding thing.

So having that time where people play something they love, and everyone sings along if your family is up for singing, is so powerful. I’ll say that even if you don’t think they will join in, a lot of times they will. That’s the amazing thing.

Gigi: And yes, we are talking about holiday traditions, and we celebrate Christmas, but whatever you celebrate, you can adapt these ideas to your holidays. That’s super important.

And Makena, you’re so right. So many times people are uncomfortable because maybe they’ve never done this before. Sometimes the guys are like, “What is this?” 

But there’s something almost childlike in us. When everybody else is doing it, we have the courage to say, “Okay, I’ll do it too.” And it ends up being really fun. People enjoy it.

Makena: Yeah. Another variation on this is one of your favorite things, Gigi–karaoke. You can get a karaoke machine any time of year, for any holiday. 

We’ve done this every New Year’s and at different times. Everyone has a chance to get up and sing karaoke.

This is one of those things where people will totally say, “No, no, no,” but a lot of times they end up getting up and singing. 

I know I keep bringing up Sunny’s family because that’s the only other primary family I’m a part of other than ours. We’ve gotten a karaoke machine out and gotten them singing, and it’s been so fun.

We did this the night before my wedding. Everybody got up and sang karaoke, and there’s just something so bonding about that.

Gigi: Yeah, super fun. We can’t wait. I can’t wait – I leave on Wednesday.

Makena: Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully, there’s something in here you can take away for yourself. I’m sure there is. 

Adapt it to your family. Try it out. Don’t have a lot of expectations. 

If people don’t like it, or they make fun of it, or whatever, try it, and if it doesn’t work, try something else next time.

Gigi: Yeah, not having expectations is a great point. Just do it and have fun. Don’t expect anyone to jump in. Also, if a couple of people resist, that’s okay. They don’t have to do anything. You just do it and don’t push anyone to participate. I think that’s really important.

Makena: Yeah. So thank you. Thank you for being here with us today. Have a beautiful rest of your holiday season, and we will see you next time.

Gigi: Yeah, and the end of your year! I guess we will see you one more time, and then it’ll be next year.

Makena: Yeah. 2025 is coming quick.

Gigi: All right. Happy holidays.

Makena: Happy holidays. Bye.

Gigi: Bye.