Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood's Family Christmas Tree Tradition

While your family undoubtedly has their own traditions, you may want to borrow this one from Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks. Long before the pandemic disrupted travel and busy schedules, every Christmas, Yearwood and Brooks would make sure they were home to mark the season with one important holiday tradition with their daughters, August, Allie and Taylor.

"The only thing we really do as a family that we have to do is ... we decorate the tree together," Yearwood told Good Morning America back in 2019. "Now that they're grown and living in different places, we still make it that the tree doesn't get decorated until we're together. So, it might go up and be bare for a week or two until we can get everybody together, and we'll make sure to do that."

In years past, Yearwood also mark the season with a Christmas cookie party with her friends. The cookbook author and the host of the Food Network's Trisha's Southern Kitchen, would host a holiday recipe swap and send everyone home with a plate of treats. While this year's celebrations may not include large group activities, Christmas traditions are more important than ever. And it's clear that in the Yearwood-Brooks house, they will make the most of their celebration just as they did celebrating Thanksgiving as a duo in 2020, without the extended family. As we previously reported, Brooks joked that Yearwood would still be cooking for twenty but he would be the only one in attendance.

"People are just incredibly anxious right now about what is going to happen and if they will be able to handle it. So, people are being pulled towards things that are familiar and known, like the holidays," Dr. Elizabeth Cohen, a psychologist in New York recently told Southern Living. She notes that the rituals of decorating and keeping as many holiday traditions as possible can help people feel more connected to themselves, their families, and their communities. This holiday season, take the time to mark the small moments and the rituals, whether you take a page out of the Yearwood-Brooks household or opt for your own family traditions.