Phawnda Moore is one of the four panelists for BNG’s free webinar on surviving pandemic holidays offered tonight at 7 p.m. Central time. Register here.
Being home for the holidays can be a refuge from the ongoing, dramatic events of 2020. In a personal sense, creating something beautiful or meaningful is more than just safely passing time while sheltering. Creative activities engage the mind, heart and soul, opening doors that may have been closed in busier days.
Try some of these ideas alone or in families. As we look forward to better times ahead, surviving this challenging year will surely be remembered by all. Write about it, create in it, keep love and kindness in it.
Gain new perspectives with your senses.
- The natural world: watch the sun rise in early dawn and the sunset. Journal or photograph these fleeting miracles, including birds and other visitors.
- The spiritual world: Create a sacred space with flickering candles to pray and meditate in silence, or while listening to the voices of virtual choirs around the world.
Try new ways of creating.
- Collaborative art: painting, poetry, lettering, making a collage in groups of two or more.
- Advent calendar for the countdown to Christmas Day: put treats or notes in drawers, bags, boxes; number by day. Plan to open it first thing in the morning. Consider the number in your family for the size of containers.
- Treats: small cookies (bonbons with gumdrops), chocolates or a surprise for the day: “Hot chocolate will be served at 10:30 a.m. today with candy canes!”
- Folded notes: “I love you.” “Remembering our first Christmas at ….”
- Activities: count your material blessings (number of books, shoes, dinner plates, etc.), then multiply that number by a set monetary amount. Example: 150 books becomes $15 for the kitty, and so forth. After Christmas, donate the total amount to your favorite charity.
Send cards and make stuff.
- Create name cards with the meaning of names as a gift for family and friends.
- Gather winter leaves, pods, twigs, rocks, dried flowers, berries from neighborhood walks. Draw a circle on large, heavy paper and arrange items in a pleasing pattern while listening to holiday music.
Make something reflective of 2020’s words.
- Create a word cloud or crossword puzzle. Oxford Dictionary was so baffled by all the new words this year that they did not choose “the” word of the year, as has been the tradition. Instead, they’ve listed an entire collective addition to our vocabularies. These are sure to bring back memories when made in a word cloud (also called a wordle or word art).
- Choose words that you may never have heard before, or that have significance to the year 2020. Include verses of Scripture that were especially meaningful.
- Here’s an example of one that I made in InDesign. You can also find online sites to make them, or hand letter.
Phawnda Moore is author of Lettering from A to Z. She lives in Northern California, where she coordinates international mail art exchanges. Find her on Facebook at Calligraphy & Design by Phawnda or Instagram at phawnda.moore.
Related articles:
Gratitude and holy kisses in a pandemic | Phawnda Moore
5 ways to make the holidays meaningful in 2020 | Amber Cantorna
Free BNG webinar will discuss how to cope with pandemic holidays
