Christmas Family Gatherings

Gatherings is festive inspiration. Part cookbook, part party planner, part crafty idea book, this is the complete guide to making Christmas special for all ages. Beautifully illustrated with color photography, this handsome volume helps busy families recapture the simple pleasures of the season. Donata Maggipinto, an expert in the art of entertaining, reinvents familiar traditions and adds her own fabulous touches to everything from sweet and savory holiday dishes to festive table decorations, ingenious gifts, and so much more. Her easy party plans each include complete menus, ideas for decorations, and heartfelt tips for making the most of time spent with family and friends. A White Christmas Eve Dinner features a holiday meal with all the fixings on a table set with a miniature village in faux snow. The Old-Fashioned Christmas Breakfast brings the family together over Gingerbread Shakes. And the Gift Wrapping Get-Together is a delicious way to sneak in time with girlfriends while crossing a holiday chore off the list. Packed with satisfying crafts that are fun to make and give, this handbook to the holiday season also includes family-friendly activities perfect for winter afternoons. The modern-day guide to timeless good cheer, Christmas Family Gatherings helps make the holidays the way they were meant to be: magical.

An unprecedented exploration of the intersection of events and family studies, Family Events uses events as a lens through which to explore the concepts of families, family practices, family displays and family intimacies. Family Events explores the idea that how families come to be and, moreover, come to be defined as ‘families’ relies on events: whether that be via ‘family events’ – those which serve to celebrate being part of ‘my’ family – (e.g., birthdays, weddings, funerals), ‘events experienced as a family’ (e.g., a holiday or day trip) or ‘events which impact families’ (e.g., recession, war, global health emergency). Family Events brings together contributions from the social sciences, leisure and event studies which focus on a variety of different event contexts, including the life cycle, death and illness, sport, holidays, and community and religious festivals. Family Events offers a multitude of insightful perspectives on the intersection of events and family studies, and is a valuable resource for academics and students with a research interest in events, leisure and the family.

An updated edition of the best-selling classic by the popular author of the "Miss Manners" columns and etiquette guides is a new volume of letters, essays, illustrations, and humorous advice on how to navigate the world of civilized behavior.

To be human is to be in relationships. We can’t survive without them but it’s in relationships that we can so easily get unravelled. Some relationships just seem to do us in. Either we feel like we lose ourselves or feel burnt out from futile efforts to make things right for another. In our relationships we can experience the very best of ourselves and the very worst. The message of Growing Yourself Up is that you can’t separate understanding the individual from understanding relationships. All of life’s relationships are integral to increasing self-awareness and maturity. And it’s not necessarily the comfortable relationships that promote personal growth. In this 2nd edition of the bestselling book, Jenny examines how to help others without fostering dependency, and how to determine what kind of help you or others want from therapists. This is in response to the many lay and professional people who have found this book valuable personally and want to know how to help others grow. Drawing from Bowen family systems theory, the book takes you on a journey through each stage of life to see predictable patterns of relationships and to show how to use this knowledge to make purposeful adjustments in yourself; as well as lending a mature helping hand to others. The result is a sturdier self, sturdier relationships and a refreshing new way to view life’s challenges and opportunities.

From the Bestselling Author of the hit Netflix series, Virgin River! An exceptional storyteller, #1 New York Times bestselling author Robyn Carr beautifully captures the emotionally charged, complex dynamics that come with being part of any family. Readers will laugh and shed a few tears as they discover what it means to be loved, supported and accepted by the people who mean the most. Having left the military, Dakota Jones is at a crossroads in his life. With his elder brother and youngest sister happily settled in Sullivan’s Crossing, he shows up hoping to clear his head before moving on to his next adventure. But, like every visitor to the Crossing, he’s immediately drawn to the down-to-earth people and the seemingly simple way of life. Dakota is unprepared for how quickly things get complicated. As a newcomer, he is on everyone’s radar—especially the single women in town. While he enjoys the attention at first, he’s really only attracted to the one woman who isn’t interested. And spending quality time with his siblings is eye-opening. As he gets to know them, he also gets to know himself and what he truly wants. When all the Jones siblings gather for a family wedding, the four adults are drawn together for the first time in a way they never were as children. As they struggle to accept each other, warts and all, the true nature and strength of their bond is tested. But all of them come to realize that your family are the people who see you for who you really are and love you anyway. And for Dakota, that truth allows him to find the home and family he’s always wanted.

This fun, family-friendly collection of holiday recipes offers dozens of delightful foods to share as well as some new ideas about how to make family time extra-special.

Secrets, isolation, manipulation, and stonewalling occur in blended families. This book describes the stages of blending families, the players, the problems, and some solutions for all members of blended families.

As an annual event, 1st International Conference on Christian and Inter Religious Studies (ICCIRS) 2019 continued the agenda to bring together researcher, academics, experts and professionals in examining selected theme by applying multidisciplinary approaches. In 2019, IAKN Manado successfully held this event for the first time in 11-14 December at Institut Agama Kristen Negeri (IAKN) Manado, Indonesia. There were 134 papers presented during 2 days at the conference from any kind of stakeholders related with Christian education and learning development, Theology, Music and psychotherapy, Psychology and Counselling and Inter-Religious Studies. Each contributed paper was refereed before being accepted for publication. The double-blind peer reviewed was used in the paper selection. From all papers submitted, there were 80 papers were accepted successfully for publication based on their area of interest, relevance, research by applying multidisciplinary.