The beginning of a new year brings the chance to take stock of our lives, to enjoy some quiet family time after the madness of Christmas and to think about our plans for the year ahead. As the excitement of New Year passes, many of us forget the resolutions we’ve made! Often those resolutions are to lose weight, to stop drinking for January, to join a gym and do more exercise. Whatever they may be, they’ll be far easier to keep if you share them with those around you.
Get outside
With January more often than not bringing wind, wet and cold, it can be too easy to stay cosied up inside. Make one of your resolutions be to get your family out in the fresh air every day. However brief or bracing it may be, bundle up, face the elements and walk, cycle or run around the park and get those endorphins going.
Everyone looks better with rosy cheeks, and a blast in the fresh air will give you all a healthy glow and make you appreciate returning to a warm home even more. There’s nothing like splashing together in muddy puddles to help forget the day to day worries of life and help you relax.
Turn off the TV
Switch off the television and put down those screens! The long winter evenings needn’t be spent watching separate programs in different rooms, on different screens. Before the advent of screens and WIFI, families would spend the long nights playing games and cards, talking around the fire.
Why not make a pact as a family to spend a week, two weeks, or even just one day a week playing together, with that tv firmly switched off? It doesn’t matter what you play, or who wins, just that you’re spending time together doing something different to the norm.
Make dinner time special
Rather than banishing biscuits, chocolate or chips from our lives in January, (promises which can be very hard to keep!), why not make an effort instead to cook and eat together more instead? The more we think about what we’re eating, the more time we spend planning healthy, filling meals, the more fun, bonding and relaxing the whole experience can be.
Why not ask each family member to choose a course each? Write a list, go shopping together, assign each other an area in the kitchen and have fun teaching young ones and learning new recipes together. Try a vegetable you’ve never tried, indulge in a delicious pudding (if you eat it alongside your meal the fats and sugars are better absorbed!).
Make a point of laying the table nicely together, light a candle, make a simple meal special.
Lend a helping hand
Give something back to your family, to your community. Sit and ask each other what you can do to help those around you and share a little love and positivity at what can be the hardest time of year for some. Perhaps you can collect food for a local food bank? Perhaps you know somebody on their own who might appreciate a little company to lighten their days?
It could be as simple as writing someone a good old-fashioned letter, there are lots of ways to bring someone joy without having to do very much. These are the resolutions that truly make a lasting difference.
If your new year’s resolutions include decluttering your family home or finally getting around to the renovation you’ve been putting off, contact us today to get a quote for your much-needed storage space.
