Holidays

Back from holiday.

One thing we learnt this holiday was that our children just don’t understand what a holiday is about.

Here are some working principles I draw from Genesis 1-3 – a story that is, in my opinion, more concerned with the nature of creation than with the creation of nature:

We are created to engage in productive activity (and where this is lacking, people suffer a loss of wholeness or wellbeing);
‘Work’ is meant to flow out of ‘rest,’ as opposed to rest being taken once work is done (the pattern of days in the creation story – a pattern continued to this day in the Jewish Sabbath – is that the day starts with evening and ends with morning; that rest with God and then sleep proceed labour);
There is a rhythm of rest and work to the day, the week, and the seasons.

Following on from these working principles, I’d suggest that both routine and breaks from routine – say, ‘normal’ days and holidays – are needful. In part, it is about a change of pace: so holiday for someone who has a desk job might mean white water rafting, and holiday for someone whose work is more physical might mean a good book by the pool. Anyway, what we realized with the kids was that they didn’t know what to make of the absence of the ‘normal’ routine of school/nursery.

We did some great things together, that we all enjoyed. But it got me thinking: how do you do holiday with children? Not so much, what do you do. More, how do you holiday with people – and it might not be children – who don’t know what to make of a change of rhythm?

Any suggestions gratefully received. (Answers on the back of a [holiday] postcard.)


rhythm of life , family , holidays , spirituality