Family traditions – every family has at least one, particularly during the holidays.
I was asked a few months ago what my family traditions were.
I racked my brain and sadly, came up with nothing.
Not a thing.
My little family of three, soon to be four, is relatively new. We’ve been married just over four years and our son has just turned two. Most couples go into a relationship carrying traditions from their respective families – be it decorating the Christmas tree a week before the actual date; opening presents the night before; collecting personal ornaments, each with a story; celebrating birthdays with an experience and no cake; pizza night every Friday and game night every Saturday.
We came into our marriage empty handed, as far as traditions went. Our families were not big on celebrating occasions, especially birthdays and anniversaries, so we ended up being the same.
However, I do feel that family traditions are important.
Traditions help create memories.
Traditions help impart our life values to our children.
Traditions help give children a sense of identity.
Traditions help create a sense of belonging.
Traditions offer a sense of security.
I believe we have a wonderful opportunity to create new traditions with our children.
Like fun game nights every Friday.
Swimming every Saturday with Papa.
Home cooked weekend breakfasts of eggs and French toast.
Hot chocolate on Sunday nights, to ease the children into a new school week.
Library trips every week to pick a new book out.
Nightly ritual of story time and bedtime cuddles.
Sitting at the table every night as a family for dinner and exchanging our daily stories.
Baking cookies every end of the month together, just the boys and I, purely because we can.
Hiking as a family every so often.
Scrapbooking every birthday to remember the year that passed.
Annual trips to a beach to build sandcastles and laze in the sun.
I want my children to grow up with fond memories of doing things with their parents, be it on special occasions, or just something we did as a family.
I want them to grow up with a strong sense of who they are, who their parents are, what we believe in.
I want my sons to grow up with joy, and the desire to carry on these family traditions, and pass them on to their own families when the time comes.
Most of all, I want my children to know that their parents love them, and did their best to create a home that was safe, sound, joyful and wondrous.
Do you have family traditions? How do you feel about them and what are they?
This has been an original post to World Moms Blog by Alison Lee in Kuala-Lumpur, Malaysia. She can also be found blogging at Mama Wants This!Â
Photo credit to Free Digital Photos.Â
Alison
Alison is a former PR professional turned stay-at-home mother to two boys. Growing up in a small city of Ipoh, Malaysia, Alison left home at 17 to pursue her studies in the big city of Kuala Lumpur. At 19, she headed to University of Leeds in England and graduated with a degree in Communications. Returning home to Malaysia in 1999, she began a 10-year career in public relations, event planning, and marketing, working for various PR agencies and one of the world's biggest sports brands. After a decade of launch parties and product launches, concerts and award shows, international press junkets and world travel, Alison traded all that in for a life as a first time mother in 2009, and has not looked back since. Aside from writing for her blog, Writing, Wishing, Alison is the Founder and chief social media strategist for Little Love Media.
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I love this sense of tradition. These cozy memories to wrap your family up tightly within.
You, my sweet friend, are going to rock it!
Yes, making memories – so important!! xo
It’s great to have family traditions. Sometimes it’s the simple things we do together as a family that forms the traditions. We hope to have game nights with the kids every Friday once they’re old enough to appreciate boardgames etc.
Yes, I’m definitely focusing on the simple things. We’ve already started the Sunday breakfast & swims, so we’re on track!
Sometimes it really is the little things.
We go to Barnes and Noble, the girls always get steamers, they have a fav table there too ..
Birthday lunches are typically at PF Changs, they order the same stuff and then have Dad cook their fav’s that night.
Every night they have a bedtime routine, everyone always snuggles, even the 14 yr old 😉
We do family movie nights with Dad’s awesome nachos
We have an annual cookie making day before Christmas
Then another before Valentines and sometimes we squeeze one in for Easter … once you get started on some of the things you do – you have quite a list … and that makes me smile!
Such beautiful traditions, Nicole! I love that your 14 year old still snuggles 🙂
It sounds like you have wonderful plans. My family wasn’t big on traditions growing up, but my husband’s was. We’ve carried forward some of his family traditions – a new ornament for each of us for the Christmas tree each year, Shirley Temples to drink at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, Easter Bunny paw prints made of baby powder at Christmas. And we’ve made some of our own – dinner out at the Japanese Steakhouse and a trip to see a local lights show on Christmas Eve, everyone telling their days (that’s what we call it) at dinner each night…My oldest girl is especially big on making and keeping traditions. I love that she feels that way. And some are simple like you mentioned – playing games together, baking together, snuggling up and watching movies. You’re an awesome mom, Alison!
Thank you Katie, and thanks for sharing your traditions – they do sound wonderful! And it’s so good to hear that your daughter is already embracing and appreciating your traditions.
I don’t have any family traditions in my family either. But, I would like to. I agree with all the things you list as the values of traditions, and that’s why I would like to begin taking more seriously the task creating the kinds of traditions that my children can someday pass down to their children.
The good thing is? We still have time to do so 🙂
Traditions can be almost anything. For some reason, the one that jumps to mind is one we used to do when my boys were still little (now they are 10 and 12). We would play “cruise ship” in the bathtub. I would make them a plate of “hor dourves” – and they would lounge in the bath while they ate. I always loved that one since none of us has ever even been on a cruise – lol. Traditions = Memories
Yes, traditions do = memories! I think yours is really fun!
I think that you are exactly right (and very smart) to be purposeful and creative in providing opportunities to make memories for your children. My kids are now 12, 9 and 6 and they are constantly surprising me by telling me about the family “traditions” that they love. Often they are not things that I consider a tradition – and sometimes it is something we have only done once! So some family traditions will develop as your children grow and develop their own interests. Have fun!
Yes, you’re right, Jennifer! And we most certainly will 🙂
We are huge on Family Friday Fun – that is what we call our Friday nights with pizza from our favorite spot, a movie at home on the couch all snuggled up and popcorn with their favorite candy thrown in. We have been doing this since our youngest was born. We’re going on 8 years. We rarely miss any. Sometimes we may substitute the movie with some cartoons or DVR’d educational nature shows but we do our best to make it happen. Not only do our girls look forward to it but so do my husband and I.
That is exactly what I’m talking about, and it’s wonderful that you have that!!
You know, we didn’t have a whole lot of traditions, although we did the perfunctory cake and presents on birthday and the tree got itself up somehow for Christmas. We were definitely not game families, but I agree with you 100%. I think it’s important for the kids and helps them feel loved and secure.
Thank you Jennie. The thing is, it’s never too late to start a tradition 🙂
We always had certain traditions growing up and as we have gotten older and now have families of our own our traditions have shifted. Our family is now making new traditions, ones that our children will hopefully carry on into their adulthood as well.
Making our own traditions is the best part, isn’t it?
Our traditions revolve around the holidays, mostly. Red envelopes and Chinese food for Chinese New Year. Dyeing eggs & Easter egg hunts for Easter. Brunch for Mother’s Day. Balloons, decorations, cake, & a party for birthdays. The pumpkin patch & carving a pumpkin for Halloween. Turkey & pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. Cookies & milk for Santa. Christmas cards, wreaths, and a tree for Christmas. Not especially unique, but lots of fun, none the less!
They don’t have to be unique to be special, I think it’s great that you have traditions!
These are great traditions Alison! And soon your family of four will have so much fun enjoying these!
Oh yes we will. Especially the baking. For me.
Most of our family traditions are around, well, food!!! My daughters and I bake a heart-shaped cake for my husband every Valentine’s Day. It reminds me of the heart-shaped cakes my sister and I used to bake every Valentine’s Day.
Also, we started making these reindeer cookies for the holidays that are really easy for kids to help. We’ve been doing that every year now, too.
I like this concept of Friday Family Fun Day! I think I have to start getting something started!!
Thanks for another great post, Alison! 🙂
Jen 🙂
I think traditions based around food evoke very strong memories for families, so that’s great that yours do! 🙂
We say the same prayer every night at dinner. Our bedtime routine is the same almost every night. We have tons of traditions at Christmas time. I love have routine traditions and special holiday ones.
Routine traditions are the ones that firmly root the children, so I think that’s great that you have them!
I love that you are going to create your own traditions and I think the ones you listed are perfect! We have tons of traditions over here that come from our respective families but I still want to create our own too.
We’ve already gotten started on creating our own – weekend breakfasts, swimming, and yes, it is definitely fun!
These sound like great traditions you’re already creating. And hot chocolate on Sunday nights to ease the kids into a new school week…why didn’t I think of that?! Totally using this idea…thank you!
Oh you’re welcome! Let me know how it works out 🙂
Your list of traditions sounds great. You forgot one, you have the wonderful tradition of blogging, making a document of how much you love your children and contributing to it.
That is a wonderful tradition.
My husband and I came both from families with loads of traditions, we had plenty to pick from, but also started many of our own.
Ah yes, the blog. Their digital scrapbook (and mine). 🙂 Would love to hear about your family traditions, Mirjam!
It’s never too late to start a new tradition! And you probably have some and don’t even realize it. We have pancakes every saturday morning. I never though of it as a tradition before, but it really is. Have fun starting some new traditions with your beautiful family 🙂
Yes, it’s definitely never too late to start a new tradition. I look forward to starting ours!
This is lovely Allison!
What a wonderful way to make traditions unique for your family and special to your children.
Thank you Leighann!
Beautiful Alison, to have your own traditions with your own little family. I too didn’t come from a family with strong traditions unless you count Christmas or New Year which includes praying and church.
Those are traditions too!
I come from a family who traditions were based around the holidays, but not much else. I too wanted to create our own traditions with the kids. We have family movie night about once a month, complete with popcorn and fun. We also have our weekly trip to the synagogue where we learn, meet with friends, pray and play. My son really enjoys it and looks forward to every Saturday morning (which is something that I never had, but somehow alway wanted). We also have some food traditions as well… My son bakes muffins with me, or cookies with daddy. Once my daughter is old enough I am sure that she will enjoy that as well. Great post Alison, and a great list of traditions that you will share with your brood for many years to come!
See, you’re already creating traditions with your children, wonderful!
When I was little, we didn’t have many traditions, so it took a few years for me to create traditions with my own children. For instance, we read a story together every night and every year we put together the nativity scene, week by week (we do a spiral).This year I want to try and start a lent/Easter ritual (more symbolically than religiously).
Same here, my family wasn’t much into traditions either, so I’m making extra effort to ensure my boys will not say the same thing when they’re older 🙂
We don’t have a ton of family traditions either and I don’t think we’ve started that many as a couple. There are traditions with my extended family – Christmas Day always finds all of us together at my grandma’s or my uncle’s, eating turkey and opening gifts – but otherwise, we do whatever we feel like each year. My husband and I both joined the Catholic Church as adults, so we’ve tried to adopt some Catholic traditions that we’ve heard about and liked (more or less successfully – somehow it’s easier to continue traditions than to start new ones). I like what you say about traditions and what they mean to us. 🙂
Thank you! Starting traditions is not easy, which is why we’re going with the stuff we sort of already do, and trying to make it regular enough to be known as a tradition 🙂
Such a nice list of traditions! I thought our family had no tradition neither. But reading your post, made me realize in fact we all have some sort of tradition. Having dinner together, listening to books we like in the car, saying good night every day before going to bed, …. They are so embeded in our daily life, that we don’t think of them as tradition any more. However, we all have traditions! Thanks for sharing!
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