DR. WALLACE: Our "old" family traditions are great, but now I want to start a set of new Christmas/holiday traditions with my wife and baby this year. Most of our family's existing holiday traditions have been grandfathered in for five decades or longer!

Do you have any ideas that could potentially get me started in this direction? I don't need a whole detailed plan, but a few quick suggestions would be nice. I can take it from there by putting my own spin on your sage suggestions. — Seeking new ways to spread holiday cheer, via email

SEEKING NEW WAYS TO SPREAD HOLIDAY CHEER: You can decorate your house, condo or apartment home as a family but this year, expand this into a small neighborhood event. See if you can find a few neighborhood families who may be open to helping your family decorate in return for your decoration help, as well. This way, you'll likely meet new neighbors and get to know a few of them better. Each participating family can learn about other traditions and adopt and modify those into their own new traditions.

And of course, you can make Christmas cookies together and decorate them and you can shop at a tree farm for a holiday tree — but wouldn't these activities be similarly more fun if you did them in a group setting with a few other local families? Cookie recipes and other sweet treats could be exchanged. Even a small group of families purchasing trees together might qualify for a bit of a discount or at least access to some inventory everyone agrees is of the finest quality!

ARE HOLIDAY GIFTS TO TEACHERS EXPECTED?

DR. WALLACE: Recently, I've overheard other students at my high school talk about purchasing holiday gifts for their favorite teachers. I was surprised at first to hear this but after dwelling on the idea for a while, I came to the conclusion that it could be nice.

I think you likely know a lot about this topic, so do teachers expect holiday gifts from their students? And if they do, what types of gifts do they expect? — Curious student, via email

CURIOUS STUDENT: No, teachers never expect holiday gifts, but many of them are grateful to receive a few here and there in recognition of a job well done and to be shown appreciation.

And while they are always nice to receive, I know that teachers never solicit gifts nor imply that a gift might benefit a student's grade, for example.

My feeling about a gift to a teacher is that it should be thoughtful but quite inexpensive as this best encapsulates a nice compliment to a teacher's efforts to assist his or her students throughout the year.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at rwallace@thegreatestgift.com. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: JESHOOTS-com at Pixabay