by Catalogs.com Info Guru Aurora LaJambre

Anticipating the holiday season – all the fantastic food, activities and traditions you’ll enjoy with friends and family – is one thing.

Savoring it while it lasts is another. This time of year flies by too fast.

These ways to create holiday memories will remind you to take a break and make the most of these festive months.

10. Dress the dining table

Things get busy with parties and visitors and projects. Don’t let these fun things cut into your family dinners. A few times a week, rally the troops to help set a nice, seasonal table. Put out your favorite holiday dinnerware, create a centerpiece with candles. Make an occasion of these quieter family nights and your children will remember comforting candle lit meals filled with conversation.

9. Throw a party

Yes, this is a crazy time of year to decide to host a bunch of people, but do it anyway. Throw a potluck, print up some carols for a sing-a-long, hang lights and you have everything needed to create a memorable night for all.

8. Journal

These ways to create holiday memories are as much for you as your family, but it’s easy to forget that. Take some time for yourself each day or night to journal. Journaling ideas include favorite moments that day, things from the past and anything meaningful that comes to mind.

7. DIY decorations

It’s cold, windy and wet outside; a perfect time to stay indoors and decorate. Keep the kids from going stir crazy by recruiting their help in the décor department. Break out the arts and craft supplies and show them how to make paper snowflakes and handmade gift tags. Play some music in the background and let them get a little messy in the name of creativity.

6. Re-create a favorite moment

Think back to your most meaningful childhood memories. Odds are the usual errands of shopping and cleaning are not what comes to mind. It may be curling up with everyone and watching a movie with beautiful seasonal cookies or warming up by the fireplace after a snow fight, holiday tunes playing in the background. Re-create this memory for yourself and pass it on for your kids to treasure, too.

5. Break out the photo album

These days, parents can take and save thousands of pictures of the family without holding a single photograph in hand, let alone taking hours to arrange a roll in an album. If you’re lucky enough to have an album from your childhood, crack it open and share. This is a perfect time for connecting your loved ones to the past. Who knows, it may inspire you to fill a new photo album.

4. Make an occasion of reaching out

Sending seasonal cards lets people know you’re thinking of them. One the receiving end, it’s a huge thrill to be get mail from people who care. Encourage your children to carry on this important tradition by scheduling a time to sit down with them and a stack of blank cards, a few mugs of hot cocoa, pens and some cookies.

3. Volunteer

Donate some time to helping others. Work in a soup kitchen, deliver meals to people, visit a senior center, play with animals in a shelter or read to children in a hospital. Do something for a perfect stranger and the good feeling will stay with you for a long, long time.

2. Light the nights

Smell is the strongest sense. It instantly recalls long ago moments in an emotional way. Holiday candles are both decorative and mood setting. Stocking up and making a habit of lighting a few each night is one of the most pleasant ways to create holiday memories that fill your loved ones with warmth.

1. Teach your favorite recipes

Some of the most universal memories that come to mind when people reminisce about the holidays is food. The dish a parent or grandparent made every single year, the one you savored every bite of knowing it would be a whole year before you tasted it again. Learn these old recipes, write them down and make them with young children.