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How did your parenting year go? Are you the same parent today as you were on January 1st of last year? Are you the parent you want to be yet?

I am certainly not the parent I was one year ago. And, yet, I am not quite the parent I want to be either.

Do I yell less? Yes, but still more than I’d like.

Do I use Active Listening all the time? Well…. I try….

Do my children know I love them? Absolutely.

(So, that’s one thing checked off the Become a Better Parent list.)

But why am I not a superstar parent yet? Why haven’t I accomplished all my parenting resolutions from last year? I started out with such energy and good intentions! What happened?

Like every single one of you out there, I mean well. I try. I do my best.

Yet I intend to do so much better.

So why do my accomplishments not keep up with my intentions? And what is it going to take for me to get there?

With one year having come to a close, and another one about to start, I think about these questions a lot.

I did good last year. But I want to do even better this year. And check a few more items off that Become a Better Parent list.

Here are a few things I have learned that we can do to give ourselves the best chance possible of keeping our parenting resolutions.

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I want you to take a moment to contemplate this question.

What does ‘togetherness’ mean to you as a family?

What images first come to mind? Was it when you were all snuggled up on the sofa watching a movie on a Saturday night? Was it breastfeeding your baby in the peaceful wee hours? Was it your last holiday in the snow, building a snowman with the kids?

When was the last time you experienced this feeling of togetherness as a family, and how often do you get that associated warm, fuzzy feeling?

There’s probably a good chance that it’s not a regular occurrence. Well, family life is busy. Really busy. Sometimes we’re essentially in survival mode, and need to just get through the day.

And for those with school-aged kids, it’s easy to get caught up on the day-to-day treadmill: the school runs, making school lunches and dinners, after-school activities and homework, weekend classes and birthday parties. There never seems to be any spare time for anything else. It’s overwhelming at times, right?

Or, your situation might be similar to my own. I’m heavily pregnant, and have an active and strong-willed three year-old at home. We’re together seven days a week but I wouldn’t necessarily consider every moment a special time of ‘togetherness’. Often I just dream of ‘aloneness’. I’m sure I’m not a unique parent who longs for that, and that’s totally fine. We’re only human.

Somehow, though, in this fast-paced, overscheduled, consumerist, and digital world that we live in, we seem to have forgotten how to just slow down, relax, and enjoy one another without external distractions. It’s time to be intentional about reversing that.

In this article, we’re going to explore the Danish philosophy called ‘Hygge’ (pronounced ‘hoo-gah’). Although not new in Denmark, it’s the latest wellness trend sweeping the rest of the world, and literally means ‘to cozy around together’.

Doesn’t that sound like a charming notion that we could all get a little more of? It doesn’t sound too hard. The idea focuses on creating a cozy atmosphere at home, such as lighting candles, and doing things together like playing games, having cake and tea, and doing crafts.

And the holiday season is the perfect time of year to Hygge since it’s generally a time celebrated with family and friends. The ultimate aim is to spend time together, leaving problems, technology, and negativity behind and simply having fun as a family.

So, how do we start getting a little Hygge into our lives this holiday season?

Here are some ideas to get started, and to slowly start implementing a little togetherness into your holidays.

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I long, in a romantic, nostalgic way, for the days of my childhood.

Running in open fields. Biking down the road with my friends. Building forts and dams down by the creek. Camping in the woods. With nary an adult in sight.

But that nostalgic longing isn’t about me. I am sad my kids can’t experience the wild freedom of my childhood.

And why can’t I give my kids have that same carefree childhood that I had?

Fear.

I fear for my children. For their safety. I fear that they will be kidnapped. Hit by a car. Harmed by doing something because they didn’t think through to their consequences. I fear the consequences will be more than I can bear.

Parenting isn’t for wimps. It is soul-wrenchingly awful to let your heart out of your body and go walking around where you have no control and can’t protect it.

Before I had even realized it, I had forgotten the carefree joys of my childhood. And had turned into a clichéd helicopter parent.

I would strive to shield them from all consequences. I would hold their hands tightly as we crossed any street. I would stop them just as they were about to jump off the playground equipment, a mere 2 feet in the air.

It takes a lot of guts and bravery to let our children go and live their lives. I used to think that moving across the country alone with 2 suitcases, no job, and $1000 was the bravest thing I ever did.

Nope. Now I realize that pales in comparison to parenting.

Parenting has been the scariest thing I’ve ever attempted. I think I was more terrified than my kids on their first day of pre-school. And that was only the start!

I couldn’t keep going down that path, though. Because soon I realized, as kids grow older, so do the number of things I could be scared of. Continuing down that path of fearful parenting would someday lead me to a nervous breakdown.

I chose to learn how to parent bravely. It hasn’t always been easy. And it’s a conscious effort. Here are 4 key things I learned along the way.

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You know what they say about too much of a good thing?

Yeah, that’s kind of what visiting grandparents is like for us.

Every summer and winter holiday we go to the Midwest for a long visit with both sets of grandparents.

My kids love it. Which isn’t surprising at all considering how much both our parents love spoiling grandchildren.

My kids eat more ice cream in those few weeks than they do all year round. They’re allowed to stay up late. They consume more television than is humanly possible. They play all day, every day.

On one hand, it’s lovely. I love that my kids get to do this.

But it also drives me crazy.  No homework gets done. Kids are tired and cranky from missing bedtimes and getting up early. Vegetables are a distant memory.

And I end up with the unsavory task of wrestling things back to normal when we get back home.

Time at Grandma and Grandpa’s is special. It should be. I don’t want to get in the way of that.

At the same time, I don’t like how out of balance my parenting feels by the end of the trip.

So, for the past couple of years now, I’ve been trying out a few tricks to make the most of the fact that my kids have such wonderful grandparents, while at the same keeping it from straining my own relationship with my parents, or my kids.

Here are 4 things that have really helped:

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