Tia Mowry's Top 10 Family Holiday Traditions - Quick fix

- Hi guys! So the holidays are gonna be here at any minute, and I know as a busy mom the holiday season can leave me feeling overwhelmed. Well, no need to stress or skimp out on family traditions, because I'm gonna show you my top ten ideas for creating fun family traditions that'll last a lifetime. First up, consider creating a garland of thanks for Thanksgiving. I'm gonna be hosting Thanksgiving this year and all of my family and my friends are gonna be coming over, and to embrace the spirit of Thanksgiving, I thought it would be great for all of my family and my friends to write out what they're thankful for. You can go to any craft store and pick out some really cool decorative paper. You can decorate your cards with beautiful Fall stickers to make it more festive. And you just have all of your family and your friends write on a piece of paper what they're thankful for. Take some cool fun string, find a place in your house, like maybe a mantle, then have each guest hang their cards on some string with a clothespin. Not only is it a thoughtful touch, it's also great for party decor. Number two, send Christmas cards and make your tradition that you take your family photo at Thanksgiving. Everybody's already dressed up. Everybody's already festive, and everybody's already there! (laughs) You don't have to rally up the troops ever again. Number three, have a tree trimming tradition. Say that three times. (laughs) In our family, our tradition is while we're trimming the tree, we will sing carols, and I've been doing this ever since I could remember, with my mom, my dad, my brothers, and my sisters, and we would just belt it out, (laughs) whether we sound good or not. But I have so many great memories. Just being with my family, having chocolate milk, eating Christmas cookies, while we're trimming and decorating the tree. What I wanted to do is, I wanted to continue that tradition and do it with my family. My son, he's now six years old, and for every Christmas, while we're trimming the tree and decorating it, we will sing songs. (operatic singing) (laughs) That was terrible. Anyway, you get the picture. While you're trimming that tree, don't be afraid to listen to some awesome Christmas carols and just sing. Here's another tradition. When you're taking down the tree, I know for me it can be a sad moment. How 'bout making it fun, and create a Christmas goal? You wanna get everybody in the family to write down their personal goal that they wanna see in the year ahead. It could be getting a promotion at work, learning how to ride a bike, taking a fun family vacation, losing some weight, no. (laughs) I know that's for me, man, because when you have Thanksgiving and Christmas, jeez! I'm not saying anybody else, I'm just saying, that's usually my personal goal. And this year, I have a new one, and that's where you guys can help. Subscribers. Subscribe. So to write down your personal goals, what you wanna do is go to a craft store, get some envelopes like this, write down your personal goal, tuck it away, and store it with your ornaments. So next year when you put up your tree, you can see if you've reached your goal. And if not, just do it again. Next up, is encourage reading during the holidays. I like to call this tradition 12 days of reading. The 12 days leading up to Christmas, I'm gonna give my son a book and read it to him. These are books that I grew up with. These are holiday classics. Also my son, he's a huge fan of Polar Express the movie, so I'm gonna give him the book. This is just something that makes reading extra special around the holidays. This tradition also makes a great gift. Another idea is encourage giving. I know with a lot of kids, especially during Christmastime or the holidays they're kinda just focused on receiving. So here's our tradition. What I like to do is take my son to a toy store and have him pick out whatever he wants and liked 3 years ago, so that he doesn't want it. We'll just wrap it up and then we'll donate it to charity. Next up, kids say the funniest things, and here's a tradition on how you can preserve them. Throughout the year, when your kid says something funny, you write it down and then you put it in a jar. My son, he said one day, I was putting him to bed, and I said, Cree, I'm your best friend right? He goes, "No Mommy, you're not my best friend. "My best friends are my friends at school. "They're young." (record scratching) I was like okay, what does that make me, old? (laughs) What I'll do is, I'll write that down, put it in a jar, and at the end of the year, I'll put all of the funny sayings in a scrapbook. And during Christmas or the holidays, when all of your family and your friends are gathered around, you embarrass them. (laughs) That's the point. You embarrass your kids. No, you just read them out loud and you have a great laugh, and you're having loads of fun. The next tradition, reindeer food. So, you know we always give cookies to Santa. Well you can't leave the reindeer out, they need food too. So if you wanna go that extra mile, just put out some oats with some pumpkin seeds for the reindeer to enjoy. This also works great as a hostess gift for friends who have kids, so you can bring them in on the fun too. Next up, mark your calendars on December 1st as clean-out day. What I like to do is I like for my son to pick out all of the toys that he doesn't play with anymore, and then we bag them up, and then we ship them off to charity. Charities around this time, they need loads and loads of toys. And I love this idea, because it teaches kids about giving before they get. Here's another tradition. If you're thinking about holiday parties, why not host a cookie exchange? Invite your family and friends over and have them bake and bring two dozen cookies. Each friend comes with their favorite cookie plate. Have your friends pick out some cookies, and then everybody leaves with an assorted cookie platter. How fun and amazing is that? These are my top 10 family traditions. Leave some comments below, and why don't you share with me some of your fun family traditions? See ya next time! (holiday music)