Generations of Joy

As we continue cultivating and prolonging our Eastertide joy, we invite you to focus on the way joyful activities can create connections across the generations. This week, ask your family, “What brings you joy?”

If you’ve got a big piece of paper or a posterboard, put it up, gather everyone together, and make a list. Encourage everyone to contribute activities that bring them joy, including inside activities and outside activities, calm activities and energetic activities, common activities and things you haven’t done lately but the memory of which make you smile. If an activity is special to more than one person, put a star next to it. There might be some wonderful surprises in store for you here, as you discover which activities are already shared joys between different members of your family. Perhaps you have more in common than you thought!

After your list is complete, take action! Create a calendar for yourselves, starting with today, with at least one of your joyful activities on each day’s schedule. Consider prioritizing the starred activities, but don’t feel like you need to eliminate the ones that only one person enjoys. In fact, if someone shares an activity that ONLY they enjoy, have them talk about why they love it – let them share their joy with you. And as you participate in their activity, even if it’s not something you usually enjoy, try to connect to the things about it that your family member loves, and see if some of their joy rubs off on you :-)

Has your family connected over any new activities? Are you sharing the joy of swimming, or dancing, or singing silly songs together? Share some of that joy with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!