Surviving the Holidays with Your Family (Without Losing Your Mind!)

The holidays: a time for joy, togetherness, and… utter chaos? Let’s be honest, navigating the festive season with a multi-generational family can feel like herding cats wearing reindeer antlers. But fear not! This guide is your survival kit, packed with tips and tricks to keep everyone connected, coordinated, and (relatively) sane.

Organize Like a Holiday Pro

First things first: organizing schedules is key. According to the American Psychiatric Association, 28% of Americans find the holidays stressful. A shared family calendar is your secret weapon. Use cloud software like Familycrossings.com to schedule calendar for holiday activities. Categorize each family member’s events and send reminders, from Grandma’s bridge game to little Timmy’s school play. This way, everyone knows who’s doing what, when, and where.

Sharing is Caring (Privately!)

Want to share photos of your disastrous attempt at baking gingerbread cookies without the whole world seeing? Private family sharing platforms are your answer. Familycrossings.com lets you create a family journal, sharing those precious (and hilarious) moments with only the people who matter. Remember to establish privacy norms. Avoid sharing sensitive information in photos and understand the platform’s privacy settings.

Family News Flash!

Keep everyone in the loop with a family newsletter! Whether it’s a digital email update or by logging in to a family portal like Familycrossings.com, sharing news and updates helps bridge the distance.

Recipe for Success

Don’t let Aunt Betty’s famous lasagna recipe disappear into the culinary abyss! Use Familycrossings. com to collect and share family recipes. Create a digital family cookbook, complete with stories and memories attached to each dish. This way, you’re not just sharing food; you’re preserving edible family history.

Reunions & Vacations

Planning a family reunion or vacation? Start early! Survey family members about availability and preferences. Create a planning committee and delegate tasks. Use Familycrossings.com to track RSVPs and keep everyone informed.

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Never miss a birthday or anniversary again! A shared family calendar can include these important dates, ensuring no one feels forgotten. Familycrossings even includes a gift list registry.

Family Chat for the Win

Create a family chat group using Familycrossings.com. Studies show that families who participate in instant messaging groups report significantly higher family functioning and well-being scores.

Family should be forever, and with a little planning and the right tools, you can make this holiday season one to remember. Now go forth and conquer those reindeer antlers anf those turkey carcasses!

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Seven Generations: How to Be the MVP of Your Family Website (Without Losing Your Mind)

Let’s talk about family legacy. No, not the *“My grandfather invented peanut butter!”* kind of legacy—though if that’s true, congratulations. I’m talking about the big-picture, seven-generations-forward type. You know, the idea that your decisions today could shape the lives of your great-great-great-grandkids. No pressure, right? It’s like being told you’re the starting quarterback for a team that won’t play its game until the year 2200.

At Family Crossings, we think about this stuff a lot. Probably more than is healthy. But hey, someone has to! So, grab a cup of coffee (or a stress ball), and let’s explore how you can connect the past, present, and future without breaking a sweat—or your family WhatsApp group.

**1. The Wisdom of Seven Generations**
This concept isn’t new. Indigenous cultures have been living by it for centuries, long before we started stressing over which emoji best expresses “family togetherness.” They believe every choice you make—big or small—should consider its impact on the next seven generations. That’s 140 years, give or take.

Think about it: That’s longer than most people keep their Netflix passwords unchanged. And here we are, deciding whether to compost our banana peels because maybe, just maybe, our descendants will thank us.

**2. Why Your Ancestors Deserve a Round of Applause**
Before you roll your eyes, let’s take a moment to appreciate the people who came before us. Your ancestors fought wars, baked bread without Pinterest recipes, and survived family dinners with no Wi-Fi escape. They’re the reason you’re here reading this blog instead of being, well, not here.

Building a family legacy isn’t about being perfect. Your great-great-grandma didn’t invent TikTok trends; she probably just wanted her bread to rise evenly. And yet, she contributed to this glorious chain of events that ends with you scrolling Instagram in sweatpants.

**3. Your Role in the Family Legacy Hall of Fame**
Okay, so you’re part of this seven-generations relay team. What’s your job? Hint: It’s not just showing up at reunions with potato salad.

Here’s the cheat sheet:
– **Preserve the Past:** Start with the family stories. Ask your grandparents about their lives, even if it means hearing the *“I walked five miles to school uphill both ways”* speech for the 20th time.
– **Live the Present:** Take your kids (or nieces/nephews) to the park. Call your mom. Resist the urge to mute the family group chat when they’re discussing Thanksgiving side dishes.
– **Plan for the Future:** No, this doesn’t mean buying stock in flying cars. It means passing down traditions, values, and maybe that killer lasagna recipe.

**4. Tools to Help You Look Less Like a Slacker**
Family Crossings exists for one reason: to make you look like the MVP of your family legacy. With tools for preserving family stories, birth milestones, death memoriums, recording stories, and sharing family photos, we’re here to help you leave behind more than just a dusty Facebook account.

And the best part? It’s easier than you think. Our family website builder platform is so user-friendly, even your cousin who still types with one finger can use it.

**5. What the Next Seven Generations Will Say About You**
Picture it: 2144. Your great-great-great-grandchild is sitting in a hologram room (probably), reading about their ancestors (that’s you). What do you want them to know? That you binge-watched an entire season of *The Great British Bake Off* in one night? Or that you took the time to preserve the family legacy?

No judgment if it’s both. Balance is key.

Seven generations isn’t just a philosophy—it’s a challenge. A funny, heartwarming, occasionally stressful challenge. But here’s the good news: You don’t have to do it all. Just do something. Because one day, a future family member will look back and think, *Wow, they really cared.*

And if that doesn’t make you feel good, at least you’ll always have potato salad.

Ready to join the seven-generation movement? Sign up for Family Crossings today, and let’s build the bridge between past, present, and future—one awkward family photo at a time.


FamilyLobby.com is now closed but we can help

FamilyLobby.com shuttered it’s servers this week. Since our previous post we have had hundreds of signups that we attribute to FamilyLobby refugees looking for a new home for the family website. If you have the zip file that you could purchase from FamilyLobby then we can help you transfer that data into a Familycrossings.com family web site. Please call us for personal service @ 877-765-2655.

 

Familycrossings.com does a lot more than FamilyLobby ever did. It may take a few visits to get the family digging into your content, so we’ve included a couple of audience building tools like Question of the Week, Birthday Alerts and Cards, Family Polls and eBox.

Our core features include

What’s Included

Share family photos
Upload, View and Store your memories with ease
Our simple interface allows you to post and view your photos easily without special tools or software. Categories and meta tags allow you to quickly sort and search photos based on user, location, date and more.

Get Family News
Don’t miss the family’s coming and goings
Post family newsletters, stories, announcements and more. Now you can quickly and easily post and view all the family news that is fit to print!

Share recipes and remedies
Keep your favorite family dishes and cures here
Mom’s apple pie, Thanksgiving stuffing, nightmare cures; these are the things that make life’s events special. Now you can be sure you’ll always have them.

Family Calendar
Post birthdays, anniversaries, schedules and more
Soccer games, work, music lessons, class schedules; Family life is hectic. Make sure your family’s paths cross every chance they get with our easy to use, shared family calendar.

Wish Lists
Never buy the wrong gift again!
Is dad tired of getting ties every Father’s day? Did mom get dishes when she really wanted jewelry? Not anymore! Now each family member can post their wish list for every birthday and holiday to make shopping easy!

Store Family Addresses
Easily save and find phone numbers, email and home addresses
Does your rolodex look like a scrap book? Are family addresses scattered in multiple locations? With our simple system, the entire family can share one address book. Now you can email, make calls or mail letters with ease!

Hold Live Family Chats
Secure family style chats for the entire family
Have an old-fashioned gab session! Our chat system allows your entire family to talk to each other, at once, day or night without the fear of predators or scary phone bills.

Preserve Family History
Keep your family stories alive for generations to come
Keep your family’s stories, photos, news and more alive and safe for future generations. Offsite storage of back-ups means your family history is safe theft and natural disaster. Even your family secrets!

Crossings
Visualize your family data with maps, time lines and tag clouds

READY TO START? SIGNUP HERE

 

 

Its a New Look for Family Crossings

It started in June of 2016 on a Sunday afternoon. Our lead web developer sat down with Bruce Collen to flesh out the redesign for our Family website product. The MyFamily.com customers had shown us where we could improve the product now we needed to focus our energies. So we re-read all of your feedback email, watched your actions during training session, & reviewed the survey results from our various customer polls. If you are a member of a Familycrossings.com site we hope you will enjoy the new responsive interface. It will work well on any computer or mobile device. You won’t need an app just login.

So here is what you get:

1) A new, cleaner interface. We have removed the left navigation system completely. You can now use our simpler top tab and sub navigation to move through the different site sections. In a tab the Active section is now underlined to better show the active feature. On the right hand side of the navigation you will find Tools/Actions- click this to add, change or delete content from a section.
2) Image of Day (IoD) is now a vote based process. Every photo has a vote function located to the right of the image. Click it to register your vote. The home page Image of Day will immediately change. If another image is voted up by more people than the existing image the new image will replace the other image immediately. All Image of the Day photos will be available in the IoD Photo Album.
3) More Storage – Standard now includes 500 MB of storage. Premium now includes 1 GB of storage. If you order extra storage you will now get twice as much for the same price ie get 2 GB for the price of 1 OR 4 additional GB for the price of 2 GB
4) Save as you write function has been added to Stories and Database
5) Parenting Center section has been changed to Requests
6) Photo Galleries section has been changed to Photos / Album thumbnails enlarged
7) Family Database has been changed to Library
8) Personal Profile section has been moved to upper right
9) Larger text in Help area
10) Feedback- Has been moved to the Admin area and can only be used by Administrators
11) Removed “Family Site” text from the label of site

12)Added the ability to use an image as a background with set transparency

13) Increased Address Privacy- It is now possible to hide your personal information by clicking on your Profile, click on My Addresses, scroll down to Privacy Options, click the button for Selected Members and then choose ONLY the family members who SHOULD see your address and email account information.
14) Shopping- This section is revamped with brand new stores offering uniques products and special savings. Want to save $10 on groceries every week? Check out our Coupons area.
15) History Medical section added 10 questions

So what are you waiting for? Go login here and start adding new items to share with your family.