“Mom, is Santa Jesus’s grandpa?” If you’ve found yourself in the (somehow surprising?) position of Adult In Charge Of The Holidays, you too might be on the receiving end of kids’ questions about what’s going on, exactly, with all these rituals and traditions. The answers don’t always come easy, because even as adults it’s not always obvious how (or whether) to carry our own family of origin’s traditions into a new generation, how to merge faiths and cultures with our partners, and how to explain it all meaningfully to our kids.

In today’s Voices episode, Sarah chats with three members of The Mom Hour team about bringing traditions forward from the past, creating new ones that feel right for right now, and navigating interfaith and intercultural dynamics. It’s a vulnerable, nuanced, and sometimes funny topic, and while we don’t pretend to have every aspect represented or covered today, we invite you to join us as we learn a little from one another!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• We have Gift Guides for just about anyone on our Blog this holiday season!
• Meet our contributors featured in this episode: Catie Parrish, Joanne Ruelos Diaz and Katherine DeVries. 
• Catie is a devout coffee drinker. She loves to ground EightO’Clock coffee beans each morning. 
• Joanne shared how much she loves genmaicha tea! Here’s another link to one of her favorites. 
• Catie shared how she incorporates activities in her home throughout the holidays including the Catholic traditions: The Advent Wreath and St. Nicholas Day.
• Katherine and Sarah both recommend attending The Winter Fantasy Sawdust Festival if you live in Southern California 
• Katherine suggests checking out this kid-friendly, jewish recipe website for all your holiday baking and cooking needs.
• Catie likes to incorporate this Chocolate Mousse and this Polish Cookie into her family holiday traditions.
• Joanne’s family and friends Eat 12 Grapes for good luck at midnight to ring in the New Year. 
• Sarah’s family searches for the almond in this Danish Almond Rice Pudding recipe every year on Christmas Eve!

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Planning, shopping, wrapping…Oh My! Today we’re featuring YOUR genius House Rules for gifting and giving this holiday season. We chat creative ways for extending the fun on the big day (without more buying), self care for mom after a wrapping marathon, what Santa brings (and doesn’t), how to handle extended family gift giving, AND gifts from the cat (yep, you read that correctly). Join us!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• We have Gift Guides for just about anyone on our Blog this holiday season!
• 10 Quality Puzzle Brands For The Little & Grown-Up Puzzle Lovers In Your Life
• 8 Kitchen Gadget Gift Ideas For Home Cooks & Hobby Bakers
• Let The Enneagram Guide Your Gifting This Holiday Season
• Facilitating Grandma and Grandpa “Thank-Yous” on Christmas Morning from afar can get tricky. We shared lots of ideas for this in a recent episode.
• We mentioned St. Nicholas Day a few times in this episode. Not familiar with this Day/Tradition? Learn more about it here. 

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Can’t we all just get along? (Or maybe, more accurately: Can ANYONE, EVER, just get along?) From playground drama to cousin power dynamics, sibling bickering to neighborly awkwardness, there’s no avoiding relationship challenges as families grow, change, and evolve. Today’s episode brings together some of the common questions we’ve gotten from listeners over the years about helping kids learn to play well and fight fair. Join us!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• If you listen and one of the recordings was about your child we’d love to hear from you! 
• Ashley asks for advice about how to handle the dynamics of elementary school friendships from Episode 52.
• Tessa asks how to help a girl trio of cousins get along without forcing inclusiveness or letting hurt feelings dominate from Episode 73.
• Rachel sent in a question asking how to help her 14-month-old and 4-year-old get along and play together from Episode 122.
• What’s a mom to do when the sibling bickering is NON STOP? Sarah, a mom from our listener community, looked to Meagan and Sarah for advice about this painful part of parenting from Episode 288.
• An anonymous mom looks for advice about how to extract your family from a sticky situation with neighbor friends whose parenting style makes you uncomfortable, which originally aired in Episode 175.
• Sign up for our email newsletter!
• Do you have a Listener Question about the Holidays for Meagan and Sarah? Don’t forget to send them in by December 5, 2022. (Voicemails are our favorite!!)

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The toy catalogs have arrived and the lists are being made! It’s normal for kids to wish and want all season long, and it’s ALSO normal for all those “gimmies” to get on parents’ nerves (or make us worry that we’re raising entitled kids!). In today’s episode, Meagan and Sarah talk about what it looks like to help kids cultivate gratitude (it’s a long game, trust us), how to allow them to hope and wish while providing reasonable expectations, and how to model accepting gifts with gratitude and grace. Most of all we’re here to normalize this tension between greed and gratitude in kids: It’s not you. It’s not them. It’s just not YET. Join us!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• This episode pairs well with an oldie but goodie from the archives: On Greed And Gratitude
• Sarah’s family does “Appreciation, Aha, Apology” at family meetings. Here’s more on the activity (which she borrowed from an amazing first grade teacher!).
• Meagan mentioned Nancy Davis Kho’s The Thank You Project: Cultivating Happiness One Letter Of Gratitude At A Time. (This is an affiliate link.)
• The Little Book Of Joy: 365 Ways To Celebrate Every Day was written by our contributor Joanne Ruelos Diaz and focuses on small ways to notice what is good around you, day by day. (This is an affiliate link.)
• The recent blog post Creating An Experience-Based “Kindness Advent” Tradition With Kids pairs nicely with this episode. 
• We have an Instagram-only episode on Wednesday, November 16, about just how basic we are, which pairs with Sunday’s More Than Mom: Are We Basic? Hope to see you then!

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Trader Joe’s. Yoga. Book Club. Cute boots and crunchy leaves. Today Meagan and Sarah just want to know: “Are we basic?” Join us for a fun More Than Mom episode with deep thoughts on this totally fluffy topic, including a look back at different eras in our lives when we’ve been trend-averse and other times when we’ve embraced mainstream culture. We talk about how it’s not as easy as it sounds to “like what we like” and leave it at that, why Midlife Lady Basic is different from youth culture (duh), and how, at the end of the day, we’re all just humans who like and dislike certain things, right? Enjoy!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Are you dying to know how BASIC you are (according to Buzzfeed)? Take the quiz and let us know! 
• Sarah shared a quote from Gretchen Rubin about how enthusiasm is a form of social courage. 
• Sarah and Meagan will be talking this topic in the next subscriber-only community on instagram this month. To learn more about our subscriber community hop over to Instagram and click on our subscribe button on our profile page. 

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Being sandwiched between the littles and the grandparents who love them isn’t always easy – and there’s no one right way to do it! Today we’re tapping into the tips, advice and wisdom of our community on a topic we’ve had a lot of request for: facilitating and nurturing grandparent-grandkid relationships. In this Episode, Meagan and Sarah share practical things moms can do to facilitate the relationships we want our kids to have with their long-distance and in-person grandparents. We talk through your ideas for using modern technology to help kids connect with grandparents, making time with grandparents extra special, and how to encourage one-on-one bonding with less of a presence from mom and dad. Enjoy!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• You can see all the comments submitted for this episode in our Facebook Community.
• Are you ready to plan for this year’s Advent? Need a bit of inspiration? Check out these recent blog posts:
• 13 Advent Calendar Ideas For 2022: Celebrating The Christmas Countdown With Kids 
• Creating An Experience-Based “Kindness Advent” Tradition With Kids
• Trying to find the time to squeeze in a little exercise while working and mommying? Our contributor Chaunie shares how she does it all in the recent blog post, I Bought A Treadmill Desk And Yes, It’s As Life-Changing As The TikTok Influencers Claim

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If you’ve been listening to this podcast for any length of time you know that Meagan’s harbored some serious homesteader fantasies since her early 20s. Nearly 25 years after Meagan’s oldest was born, she’s finally living outside the city limits, and slowly making her “Little House on the Prairie homestead dreams” from long ago come true (well, sort of!). In this episode, Meagan interviews Kendra Martin from the Homesteady Podcast about how she lives off of 100 acres of land with her husband and six children. Kendra shares how she manages to homestead AND homeschool and what their family has in store for their future. Enjoy!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Want to learn more about Kendra and her family’s homesteading? Visit their website Homesteady, their Youtube channel, Instagram and podcast.
• Meagan referenced this Homesteady Podcast Episode with Kendra and Austin’s backstory to the homestead lifestyle.
• Episode 379, Lessons in Motherhood From Chickens and Kittens is a fun episode where both Meagan and Sarah weigh-in on the animals around their homes these days!
• Here’s a few photos of Kendra and her family below!
• We have a new subscriber community built right into Instagram! Listeners of the show can have more intimate conversations with us (and others), along with bonus content. Look for the Subscribe button here.

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Million dollar sick-kid question: “are they going to school today, or not?”! After two fall seasons impacted by pandemic schooling in all kinds of ways, Fall 2022 appears to be The One Where The Children Are Sick ALL THE TIME. In today’s episode Sarah and regular contributor Jayme validate (and commiserate) about the plight of kids picking up every possible virus this fall, and offer practical tips for managing kids home with common childhood illnesses. (In addition to having a toddler and a preschooler, Jayme is also a nurse by training and a physician-spouse, so she comes with some legit background…and lots of real talk.) Hang in there, mamas! You are not alone in your wellness struggles, and hopefully next fall will be a little less hard!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Follow Jayme Sherrod on Instagram or learn more about her on our Contributor Page. 
• Want to hear more from Jayme? Check out Voices 75, Getting Outdoors With Kids.
• Check out these episodes from the archives all about dealing with children and sick days:
• Sickness, Health & Motherhood: Episode 249
• Ugggggggh Sick Days: Episode 75
• Did you read the recent blog post Emergency Room Visits with Kids: What I Wish I’d Known, Packed, Said & Done? It includes a few things our contributor Joanne has learned from navigating ER visits with kids.
• Sarah and Jayme talked at length about how they prefer to treat fevers. Here are two great resources about how to treat fevers in children:
• Fever In Healthy Children
• Fever In Children (Beyond The Basics)

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It’s no secret that Meagan and Sarah can both get pretty into personality tests, particularly the Enneagram. In this fun More Than Mom we have an in-depth conversation about personalities in general (not just the types and tests!), especially as they relates to our significant others (and how they do or do not mesh with ours at times). We discuss how our different personalities play out in our relationships, the ways we reframe our differences, and reflect on our own challenging personality traits. Enjoy!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Are you unfamiliar with the Enneagram? Here is a free version of the test, and we like the type descriptions and other resources here
• We have found the Type Combinations and Type Misidentification writeups super fascinating
• Meagan mentioned the book The Road Back To You: An Enneagram Journey to Self Discovery (affiliate link) 
• Meagan also mentioned the book, The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey To Healthy Relationships, to take what you’ve learned about yourself and bring it into your relationship.
• Sarah turned Meagan onto these daily EnneaThought emails with a short message about your Enneagram type 
• Meagan and Sarah referenced the Myers Briggs Personality Test at 16personalities.com
• Sarah mentioned Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies. You can take that quiz here. 
• Looking for more details on Meagan and Sarah’s personality types? You may enjoy these episodes from the archives:
• Personalities Part One: Episode 57
• Personalities Part Two: Episode 58
• Knowing Yourself As A Mom: Episode 203

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From Halloween through New Year’s we’re given opportunities to create new traditions and fulfill holiday wishes – sometimes of our own design and, increasingly as kids get older, sometimes at our kids’ behest. This week Meagan and Sarah talk about the bell curve of holiday parenting: the early influence we have over just how things look and what fun is had, the middle dip as we learn to let go and kid-life dominates, and then the later years when we get to reclaim some control and design a season for our own desires. None of it is all-good or all-hard; but it changes over time and we’re here for your pre-holidays 2022 motherhood pep talk – wherever you find yourself on that curve. Join us!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Meagan wrote on instagram about how shopping for Halloween looks different with older kids.
• In our Facebook community there was discussion about the elf on the shelf; want to know our thoughts on it? This episode from the archives tells it like it is.
• We have you covered with Advent Calendar ideas in a recent blog post. Snag them before they sell out! 
• We have a new subscriber community built right into Instagram! Listeners of the show can have more intimate conversations with us (and others), along with bonus content. Look for the Subscribe button here.
• Check out Sarah’s front yard decorated for Halloween this year (complete with a skeleton in a pool)!

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.