The Christmas Spirit May Boost Brain Health—7 New Traditions to Make Your Own

Dec 18, 2025 - 11:00 Updated: Dec 17, 2025 - 16:54

The Christmas Spirit May Boost Brain Health—7 New Traditions to Make Your Own

On Christmas Eve, Jessica Sowards and her husband prepare a five-course dinner, light candles at a beautifully set table, and have only one requirement for their nine family members—come dressed up in your best.

Now dubbed “Fancy Christmas Dinner,” it wasn’t always their tradition. A decade ago, Sowards’ family was overbooked with obligations, leaving little time to enjoy one another. They’ve since learned to say no to some things and create one really important tradition to enjoy as a family to prevent “bah humbug syndrome,” she told The Epoch Times.

Most of us want connection, depth, and core memory building during the holidays. However, we sometimes get stuck in a rut, overcommit, overspend, or have changing family dynamics—and before we know it, Christmas and New Year lose their luster. With a little intention, the overindulgence of the holidays can be replaced with new, meaningful traditions that emphasize sincere connections while renewing our Christmas spirit.

Christmas Spirit May Boost Brain Health

A study published in The BMJ found that functional MRI scans showed people who celebrate Christmas with positive traditions have stronger, more active brain regions when viewing Christmas-related images, compared with those who feel neutral about the holiday. Active brain regions reflect functioning neurons, healthy tissue, and higher activity—key for processes such as cognition and social engagement.

The authors noted that understanding the neurological network as it relates to Christmas spirit can “be a powerful tool in treating ailments such as bah humbug syndrome,” which is not a real clinical diagnosis but a way to describe those who don’t have positive memories associated with Christmas.

Do a Holiday Audit

Don’t feel obligated to do anything simply because you’ve always done it.

In her book, “Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year,” self-help author Beth Kempton wrote: “Much of the stress of Christmas comes from either not giving ourselves permission to evolve our inherited narrative, or from the pressure to evolve it into something that is out of alignment with what, deep down, we believe about Christmas. What we need is a way to marry what matters to us with what matters to those we love, and then let go of the rest.”

Sowards echoes this advice: Audit the holidays as you audit your life, asking yourself what you really want.

Jess and Jeremiah Sowards dressed for fancy Christmas dinner. Photo courtesy of Jess Sowards

When her family began focusing on the reasons they celebrate Christmas and on creating traditions that align with them, they found the memories naturally sweeter, she said.

If you take all the commercialization out of Christmas, Sowards said, the best is left—faith, family, culture, serving, and joy.

“Ultimately, those become the backbone of what Christmas really is. We could actually get back to that, but it requires effort on our part.”

7 Simple Ideas to Reboot Holiday Cheer

If you’re looking to create a new playbook of traditions to reboot the holidays, a little creativity and spirit of fun go a long way.

1. Start a Christmas Tour

Have you been down about having an empty nest? Making new plans to visit your grown children and grandchildren on Christmas can brighten your spirit. Jill Savage, a Christian coach, speaker, and author of “Empty Nest, Full Life,” and her husband, Mark, do an annual Christmas tour of their children’s homes.

Three of their grown children live within an hour’s drive, so the Savages give them all the time they need to open their gifts on their own with their kids before they drop by for an hour or so at each house.

“The grandkids can show us what they got, and we enjoy just a little bit of time with them, and then we get in the car, and we head to the next one. We stay about an hour, and then we head to the next one,” Savage told The Epoch Times. “The kids don’t ever have to get out of their jammies.”

This year, they will be spending Christmas with their other grown child, who lives in Australia, but they are still planning to do a Christmas tour by video call with their other children and grandchildren.

2. Volunteer or Do Something New on Christmas Day

If your circumstances have changed and old traditions have faded away, finding a way to connect with others on Christmas Day can help combat loneliness and relieve stress.

Invite another person, couple, or family to join you in a new tradition. Or find a place where you can volunteer.

The Savages began a new tradition: meeting some friends, who are also empty-nesters, for an uplifting breakfast on Christmas morning.

3. Turn Memories Into Ornaments

Whitney Newby, a homeschooling mom and founder of Brighter Day Press, began painting special ornaments for her children when they were 1, 3, 5, and 7, each featuring their favorite book from that year. Five years into the tradition, the family has a small tree dedicated to their book ornaments.

“I hope to paint these for my grandkids. It’s just become so special,” Newby told The Epoch Times. “But you don’t have to paint to do this.”

Whitney Newby has made so many book ornaments for her children that they now hang on a special tree. Photo by Whitney Newby

She offered other suggestions for homemade designs that can capture a variety of special memories using wood slice ornaments found at any craft store:

Print out a color copy of favorite books—or movies—and use Mod Podge to decoupage the book cover onto an ornament. You can add names and the year with a permanent marker.
Paint or decoupage a favorite place your family visited during the year.
Decoupage your family’s photo on an ornament.
Make an ornament in memory of a deceased loved one.
Write a favorite memory on your ornament.

Other new traditions might be family-oriented. “Maybe families have different loves. Maybe if they love cooking, they could put together a simple cookbook, or hiking in the outdoors, take the same hike on the same day in December,” she said.

“I think for it to stick, it needs to really hit on what your family naturally loves.”

4. Give Themed Gifts

Jeff and Jan Koch have bought their daughter, Caroline, 30, a gift featuring the nativity scene—depiction of the birth of Jesus in a stable—every year since she was 5.

The nativity might be a full set or simply featured on an ornament, artwork, or a music box. When she was little, she got a plush version. The couple’s favorite part of the tradition is planning a shopping trip together for the special gift.

“That’s probably the only time I go shopping,” Jeff Koch told The Epoch Times. “And it’s fun. What I like about it is it’s focused. I hate to go shopping when I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

Themed gifts could include everything from buying a book for someone’s personal library to gift certificates for a new experience.

5. Do Something You Enjoy

Find what brings you joy, and do it.

For Jan Koch, that’s going overboard on wrapping. It’s not about how much she spends on paper and embellishments, but more about how she can express herself creatively. Her goal is to make each package look unique, festive, and special, even if the gift inside costs nothing or very little.

She likes adding doodads—homemade bows, ornaments, greenery, or berries—to her designs to create a fun unwrapping experience for the recipient. There are other reasons she immerses herself in gift wrapping.

“It’s a time when I get to de-stress and decompress,” Koch told The Epoch Times. “After everybody goes to bed, I like to just put on my Christmas music and get on the floor by the Christmas tree and wrap. I feel close to the Lord, basking in what Christmas is really all about, and it makes everything else feel so much more joyful.”

6. Take a Walk Just for Fun

Hannah Knowles, a 23-year-old behavior therapist for kids with autism, described her favorite holiday tradition as the after-dinner walk her extended family takes through the small town where she grew up.

“Everyone seems to get something different out of it,” she told The Epoch Times. “For me, moving around after I eat something so big, it helps my digestion, and I just feel less crummy later.”

The little ones might collect acorns or lead the group in singing a few songs from the movie “The Grinch.” The older folks appreciate moving their joints. Everyone in the family gets the biggest kick out of pranks at “Uncle Brian’s” house, which is on their route. It might involve hiding his television remote, removing labels from soup cans, hanging pictures upside down, or putting googly eyes or rhinestone stickers on everything.

“Last year, we had plastic spiders,” Knowles said. “We put them everywhere, in his cabinets, in his loaf of bread, in his container of coffee grounds.”

The only time Uncle Brian pushed back was when they extensively rearranged his furniture—the crew had to return and fix it—yet his door continues to remain unlocked for the family.

7. Acknowledge Loved Ones Who Have Passed Away

Honoring loved ones who’ve passed away as part of your celebrations or in a separate, special way can be therapeutic, according to Tenneil Register, an entrepreneur in Iowa and author of the holiday workbook, “When Joy Takes Courage,” in which she wrote, “An intentional holiday beats a perfect holiday every time.”

“Our strategy for the holidays tends to naturally be to just get through it in autopilot mode,” she told The Epoch Times. “The more intentional we can be to make space for what we’re really feeling, we’re going to create better health and have peace.”

Have a custom puzzle made of a photo of you and your loved one, and put it together.
Take a walk in one of their favorite places.
Buy gifts for a person in need who is a similar age to or reminds you of your loved one. Organizations such as The Salvation Army have “angel trees” for children, and other organizations, such as homeless shelters and nursing homes, may offer similar opportunities.
Volunteer for a cause that reminds you of your loved one.

Register’s brother, who was homeless and addicted to drugs, died tragically. There was no funeral or grave, so she has created ways to remember him. One way she’s done that is by volunteering in a homeless shelter.

“Connecting with the community he chose to be a part of, even though that was difficult for me to understand or accept, is a way I can honor him,” she said. “It’s a way of keeping memories close and gives me joy, because when you serve and give to others, you’re going to have joy.”

Whatever You Do, Be Present

A necessary ingredient of any tradition—new or old—is mindfulness. Try to avoid keeping your head in the clouds, and imagining a perfect version of the wonderful new tradition you’re starting—or in the past, where you’re thinking about all the times you messed up, Sowards said.

“Right now, when things are going crazy, and the baby’s crying or something gets broken or spilled, that’s the only time you’re ever going to experience that exact configuration of your family,” she said. “Your life is actually being lived today, and just being fully present changes the love and heart you bring to the table.”

That’s what the Koch family is emphasizing, this year especially. Their granddaughter, Katie Rose, has spent much of the year in a hospital after being diagnosed with neuroblastoma in February. She’s had great success regaining the use of her legs in intensive therapy and has only a small tumor remaining.

Family decorated Katie Niccolls' hospital room with small trees, stockings, lights, photos, and nativities. Photo courtesy of Caroline Niccolls

Caroline Niccolls with her daughter, Katie, and nurse Shannon Strayhorn outside Katie's hospital room. (Photo courtesy of Caroline Niccolls

“Even though it’s not the same as usual, the fun thing is we went shopping for Christmas decorations in St. Louis to decorate Katie Rose’s room for Christmas,“ Koch noted, adding it has lights, trees, Christmas music, and, of course, nativities. ”I swear everybody in that hospital has been in that room, saying, ‘We heard Katie’s room is all decorated. Can we come in?'”