Grandparents Day is coming up and poses a special event for families. It is held the first Sunday after Labor Day. It is that precious time to connect and put feelings into words. The pandemic cost grandparents precious time with their children and grandchildren which cannot be recovered. Many of the 70 million senior citizens who populate this special group could not risk interaction and had to face isolation or were forced to at least keep a distance from those they cherish most. These wonderful people are very special in the lives of their family. Often they form instantaneous and unbreakable bonds with their grandchildren from the first moment of holding their wiggling and tiny swaddled selves. The love passing back and forth is pure, strong unconditional and undeniable.
Grandparenting Allows Special Life Perks
During the mitigation process undertaken to keep everyone as safe as possible until an effective vaccine could be discovered, grandparents had only zoom calls, cell phone babble, and drive-by-hi moments to keep depression away and hope for reuniting as their focus. Afterall, grandparents get perks from having mothered and or fathered children. Of these perks, grandchildren are the “gold.” Grandparents are known to indulge in these perks:
- Special Identification – Titles that only they can claim such as: poppa, nana, nonnie, gramps, grumps, graminator, grampinator, popoa, gumpa, and poppie
- New Learning Skills – Grandchildren offer new ways to see the world, new definitions for words, new math solutions, new music and fairy tale endings, and new ways to use an iPad or laptop to play the newest games that are populated with new heroes such as Roblox’s Lord Umberhallow, Tim 7775 and Captain Rampage.
- Reinvention of the Arts – Being constantly gifted with smeared watercolor creations or clay models of grandparent faces, silhouettes and shared activities and plaster casings of their hands or footprints to keep for always. For permanent remembrances grandchildren love doing dancing movements on TikToK like the Floss with their family elder-members. Grandparents are not too old to dance and love to stay current for the grandkids.
- Shared Passions – Getting to teach the grandchildren the activities you love like photography, soccer, geocaching with technology, baking, and swimming, to pass on the interest and share the joy of seeing them respond with delight.
- Gaining a Bestie – Grandchildren see their grandparents as allies in life and friends forever. Parents can’t be friends with their kids in order to teach, guide and protect them. Grandparents get this privilege and feel the honor that comes with being loved and trusted with wishes, secrets, and all that priceless good stuff true friends share.
Last Year’s Lost is This Year’s Gain
Now that restrictions are lifting and vaccinated family members are allowed to be with each other again safely there is reason to celebrate. Grandparents are excited as their special day draws near, to be able to finally be reunited with their children and grandchildren in a normal exchange of love. Travel safely to their house with a fully insured and updated coverage package from a reliable and trusted auto insurer, Freeway Auto Insurance.
Start a New Tradition Just for this Day
Why not start a new tradition that transcends any other holiday with its activities and joy. Make it a family fun day by choosing an activity that everyone loves. Storytelling with your grandparents about their growing-up-years offers priceless memories that children will have forever. Share this history with pictures taken back-in-the-day when their parents were their size and into every kind of mischief.
Cooking Together Bridges the Generations
There is magic connected with the cooking and sharing of food. Every culture embraces it in some unique way because like love, sharing the activity of cooking automatically makes it special. To make up for the “lost” year why not pull out the air-fryer, slow cooker or barbeque grill and create a delicious meal to share that has one ingredient in it that each person loves. It may end up looking rather odd, but who cares? The taste and the sharing are unique to this gathering. If grandma or grandpa have a recipe from their parents, chose to make that the next time you are all together. In years to come, each generation will lovingly remember the tastes smells and laughter that accompanied the time spent cooking together. Dad and granddad might be assigned the task of searing the meat for adding to the skewers of a barbeque, or as the main feature of this special meal. Loads of selfies and group pictures should be taken and shared along with captions that celebrate the event and make it family historic.
Enjoy your family members. Life is short and the challenges facing people today are both numerous and enormously important to future generations.
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