One thing that really has surprised me in recent years is how easy it is for my parents to get on with our friends' parents.

Connecting over the most valuable shared connection - their children. The trust is almost certainly already there, and there is plenty to talk about.

Growing your friend circle in retirement

When we stop working, we realize that we took for granted the day to day interactions that we got from our work friends. Often the challenge of forming new social connections in retirement can appear as a daunting task, and it is not always easy to do.

Connecting generations across this is a massive opportunity in facilitating these for our loved ones.

Two birds with one stone

If you're an expat or transplant who also finds it hard to balance spending time with both family and friends as you're visiting home. Why not combine the two?

You might find that your parents and your friends' parents get on like a house on fire!

How to organize a holiday workshop across generations and families

Invite your siblings, cousins, friends, and everyone's parent along to holiday workshops across generations and across families.

You'll get in the holiday spirit, form new relationships, and, most importantly, have fun over good food and drinks!

This is exactly what my brother and I did with our friends, and this is what we did :

Step 1: Prepare and enjoy lunch together

This helped us gather strength ahead of all the fun we had planned, as well as making sure everyone got to know each other from the start.

Step 2: Bake some of your favorite holiday treats

In our case, we had our Greek mom teach our Norwegian friends and their parents how to make Greek holiday treats.

Step 3: Design and build a gingerbread house from scratch

With the help of a little input from all generations, we were able to build set out the gameplan and the design of our gingerbread house.

Step 4: Finish the day off with a holiday-themed movie

With all that good food, wine, and treats dozing off in front of the aptly themed movie was a great way to finish off a long day.

Mon Tonton - for long-distance families

At Mon Tonton, we're working on developing technology that facilitates in-person interactions, because nothing can replace real-life connections.

Happy holidays to all our readers, we hope some time off with the ones you love and whom you choose to spend it with recharges your batteries and prepares you for a new year with lots of new.

The next Mon Tonton article will be out on Jan-13 !