December 16, 2025

Holiday Traditions with the Wellness Concepts Team

In this month’s newsletter, we reflected on the best gift you can give your loved ones during the holiday season: presence. It got us thinking about how many of the things we love most about the holidays revolve around the intentional moments (and the cookies) we share with others.

We asked our team to share the traditions and rituals that make this season feel special to them. Each ornament on the garland represents a team member’s meaningful holiday tradition. Can you guess what each ornament represents? See each team member's ornaments and holiday traditions below.

Team Holiday Garland

"My favorite ritual is decorating the tree with all of the ornaments we have collected over the years. Now that all of my children are adults, it is a time to reflect on years passed. We take our time pulling out the ornaments one by one and reminisce.

Here is the clay ornament you made in kindergarten! Here is the ornament you picked out when you were transfixed with trains! Remember you got a train set that year? Remember when Aunt Heather gifted us this one as a gag - love it! This one came from Nana and Papa’s collection.

Certainly many ornaments are not very pretty (and make us laugh!) but they are uniquely ours and reflect more than two decades worth of holidays together. This past year we discussed how nice it will be in the future to continue to collect ornaments with the next generation."

-Caitlin

"I love being home with my family during the holidays. The kids have winter break and there are no sport commitments during this time, so we can enjoy being together. We love playing board games, watching Christmas movie classics and enjoying the local festivities."

-Diana

"My favorite yearly tradition in my family is getting together and opening matching pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve! I look forward to my new PJs every year and it’s always fun to match with my family for a night. Plus, every time I wear them throughout the year it’s a reminder of spending quality time with family."

-Elliott

"My two favorite traditions are baking cookies. I have a “cookie bake” with my parents and sister, and we also do a gingerbread house contest with my husband's family!"

-Kayla

"My favorite holiday tradition has become having our closest friends over on the “eve of Christmas eve” (December 23^rd) and belting out every possible Christmas and holiday carol we’ve ever heard of, (mainly out of tune) accompanied by actual sheet music with the lyrics (very necessary), electric guitar, bass, drum set, tambourine, cajon, and of course, yummy holiday beverages and snacks. It’s the perfect gathering that reinforces the joy and gratitude of the season!"

-Kristen

"Our favorite holiday traditions are putting up the Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving, baking all the holiday cookies, and watching Christmas Vacation!"

-Michele

"I love seeing everything decorated with lights. A 4:30 PM sunset makes wintertime bleak, but not when houses are strung with colorful lights and windows are lit with flickering LED candles! I love the cozy and whimsical vibe they create. It’s also so touching to think of the effort and expense people go through to bring cheer to neighbors and visitors"

-MK

"My favorite thing is staying up late on Christmas Eve watching Christmas movies and drinking hot cocoa!"

-Nicole B.

"My favorite holiday tradition is baking my grandmothers cookie recipe with my entire family. We do it the week before Christmas and have all the kids put flour on their faces and take pics of the whole process and have done it for the last 12 years! We can then look back to see how our family has grown and evolved!"

-Nicole P.

"My mom, siblings, and I love to drive around our town at night with some hot cocoa from Dunkin and look at all the cool holiday decorations/lights."

-Reed

"My family loves any sort of Little Game or Puzzle situation and someone always gets the family a puzzle for Christmas that we will then collaborate on throughout Christmas day and over the course of the following if it is a more complicated one! It's fun to have something to collaborate on casually, and we like to keep it done and on the table for a few days after to appreciate our work!"

-Scout