As mom and I were discussing our posts leading up to Christmas, we talked about doing a post about old fashioned Christmas. My thought was that we could talk about some of the old traditions and do a creative update on some of them. However, as we were talking about it, we realized that one of the biggest ways that a family could make their Christmas more old fashioned would be to just unplug.

We rely so heavily on our technology these days. There is controversy over whether our new technology is making us more anti-social. While that might be the case, the thing that I believe is the biggest problem is that it is making us artificially social. We are so connected to everyone all the time but we lose focus of what’s going on directly around us. We rely on social media to feel connected with friends rather than making the effort to have face to face contact with the people we care about most. You can talk to your best friend from high school that you’re not that close to anymore, but you forget to make the time to meet for coffee with your current best friend who is there for you no matter what. You sit around a room with your family, and everyone checks out what everyone else in the world is eating for their Christmas dinner through their social media pictures.

Do you want a more old fashioned Christmas? It’s not about the activities you do anymore that will make it that way–it’s about the way you do it. If you are more concerned with documenting every second of every experience on your phone, that’s not old fashioned. If you are spending half your day fielding texts and social media messages of “Merry Christmas,” that’s not old fashioned. If you have to snap a pic of your turkey dinner to post online before you can eat it, that’s not old fashioned.

It’s too easy to get bored at a get together and pull out your phone. It’s harder to get bored and be creative and come up with something to do, or come up with a conversation topic with your strange uncle. If you want to have a Creative Christmas, you have to allow your mind to be free to get bored so that it will have room to be creative. If you want an old fashioned Christmas, have a basket at the door for people to put their technology in. If people are tempted, you can have a game where the person has to do something embarrassing or has to do the dishes by themselves if they pick up their phone.

This Christmas, choose to be with who you are with. If you must update your social media, do it before you are with people and DO NOT check it for updates while you are with people. Turn it off. And engage in the festivities that are happening with your family and friends.

And if you need help motivating your family to join you in being unplugged, break the ice with this hilarious and timely video from Rhett and Link.