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What are your favorite traditions -- for ANY time of year?
What are your favorite traditions -- for ANY time of year?
Now that we are new parents (b/g twins 4 months old), we have stars in our eyes about how we hope to raise our kids. I would like to start some traditions while they are young and would love to hear about the traditions you do, neat ones you have heard of, or those that formed favorite memories from when you were a kid. Please share!! Here are some of mine:
Halloween:
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- Pick pumpkins at the patch
- Carve them together as a family
Christmas Eve:
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- Have the whole family over for Christmas Eve dinner & exchange 'extended family' presents
- Each place setting has a little "table gift"
- Read The Night Before Christmas
- Leave out cookies & milk
Christmas Day:
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- Have one present unwrapped, assembled and under the tree ready to be enjoyed
- Read the story of Christ's birth from the Bible
- After opening presents, eat breakfast together as a family (there's an overnight french toast recipe I make)
Easter:
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- Color eggs together
- Have an Easter Egg hunt, after church, finding the Easter Basket at the end of it
Birthday:
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- Mom makes a special breakfast
- Enjoy a new "birthday outfit" to wear...opened first of the day
Un-Birthday:
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- Celebrate your Un-birthday at 6 months from your real birthday with 1/2 a cupcake
- Sing the Un-birthday song from Alice in Wonderland
Other:
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- Have "family night" once a week & play games, go to movies or bowling or the like
- Have one night a week where mom doesn't cook. Either order in or go out to eat.
Re: What are your favorite traditions -- for ANY time of year?
Wow... we don't have that much going on.
This is our current Christmas tradition: we open one present a day starting a few days before Christmas. All of our gifts to each other are opened before Christmas. Yes, I can't wait -- but I use the excuse that we won't be home.
We travel to in-laws for Christmas Eve and go to church with the family. Christmas morning breakfast and gifts with FI's side. We leave and stop at least one relative's house for a quick greeting. <I also sing Christmas carols along the way -- its about 2 hrs> Go to my parents' and have dinner and gifts with them. Then we come home.
So far these are the traditions we've chosen to form with her.
1. Fleet Week: One of my fondest memories was going to Moffett Field with my parents to watch the Blue Angels fly. We just took DD to her first Fleet Week last weekend and we're definitely going to make it a yearly tradition.
2. Christmas in the Park: In my city they transform one of the city parks into a winter wonderland. I grew up going there and loved it. It symbolized to me the official beginning of the holidays. We took DD last year and took a picture in front of the giant nutcracker that's always displayed. We plan on taking her there and taking that same picture every year.
Forgot to add:
3. Halloween: Pumpkin patch and carving of pumpkins.
4. Birthday: pancake breakfast. She had her first taste of pancakes on her birthday!
once upon a time, my sister took a photo of her kids beside a fountain at the local gardens.
everytime she came into a town (normally once every year or two) she'd take a new photo, so they have a collection of photos of the kids growiing up beside this fountain.
When I was very pregnant with LO, sister was in town and we all went to he gardens, thus began our first photo with LO beside the fountain.
We also do mid-year birthday celebrations. Nothing major, just a cake.
I'm not sure all of these are "traditions" but we do them every year...
For all holidays, my kids love getting out the decorations and helping me decorate the house.
New Years: I make black eyed peas for dh for dinner. The kids don't eat them.
Superbowl: We have people over to watch the superbowl and buy balloons with both teams logos (at the supermarket). Not sure if that is a "tradition" or just a party, but we do it eery year!
St. Patrick's Day: Corned beef and cabbage or some other "Irish" food. Play Irish drinking songs.
St. Joseph's Feast Day: Eat Italian pastries. Even if it is Lent and we are giving up desserts, this is allowed b/c we are observing the holiday of a holy saint, lol!
Easter: Color eggs. Have an egg hunt. Go to church. Play "Jesus Christ Superstar" soundtrack.
Memorial Day, July 4th, Sept 11th: Wear red, white and blue.
also on July 4th: Watch the fireworks - wherever we are!
Halloween: Go for a hayride and pumpkin picking. Carve pumpkins. Go to the kids' parade.
Thanksgiving: Dinner at our house.
Christmas season: We have an advent calendar. Pick out a tree, put up the christmas decorations. DH used to get a free ham and we'd bring that to the food pantry, but they stopped giving away the hams. Get photos with Santa.
Christmas eve: Go to church. I make seven fish for DH (the kids eat some of them, not all). Make cookies for Santa. Read the night before Christmas and the nativity story.
Christmas Day: Breakfast and presents at home, then off to grandma and grandpa's.
Thanksgiving: Dinner at my cousin's house with me doing all the cooking.
I love the organized chaos of preparing the most important meal of the year for my beloved family. It's exhausting and exhilherating.
Day before Christmas eve: H, SD and I go over our friends house and exchange gifts with them (between SD and their kids) and visit/give kids time to play. Then we come home and open our gifts to each other. SD spends the night (DH has Xmas eve off; I work a half day).
Christmas Eve: 4:00 or 6:00 mass, lasagna dinner over our cousins' house plus hot tub time. Crash over my parents' house.
Christmas Day: Breakfast and gift opening over my parents; early dinner with IL's.
Thanksgiving: Dinner with parents; dessert and drinks over next door neighbors (although I told H we NEED to incorporte time wtih ILs into this -- he chooses to spend it with my family, but ILs are bittchin' that we don't come by at all so in order to keep it fair I'm suggesting to him we at least stop by for a visit and a drink or 2).
Sundays: Dinner with the in-laws. DH family is Italian and they make big meals and everyone comes over every Sunday. I dont know how they do it, but it awesome!
I like to go to the pumpkin patch every year and also the apple farm. I am doing both this weekend with my BFF.
Summer:
The garden is a family affair - my 20 month old has already 'helped' plant seeds, weed, and pick food. She's has a keen eye for ripe raspberries
Fall:
Hayride & apple picking
Can have the biggest pumpkin you can carry. My mom had that tradition when I was a kid, and I'll carry it forward with my own
The local fair - we go for opening night every year, and watch the giant pumpkin judging. We go again another day to do rides and things
Family get together every October at the local living history museum
Winter:
Christmas is a big deal in our house - new pajamas on Christmas eve, cookie baking, bells on the roof and 'santa tracks' from the fireplace
Holiday Pops - Boston Pops, we go almost every year.
DD's birthday - family party on the weekend before or after, cupcake for dessert and presents from Mom & Dad on her actual birthday
Spring:
Seed starting
Planting the garden
All year:
Visits to the local farms and farmstands- we are teaching her that this is where food comes from, and to be a normal part of her life
Family dinners at night, 1 family breakfast on weekends
We cook together, and DD is already learning how to stir things, carefully monitored by me, of course.
Stories at night before bedtime, every night. It's important she learn to love reading.
Spring- My family, friends and I go to an annual Maple Syrup fest. We go on a long hike through the woods where all the maple trees are tapped for sap, then enjoy a pancake breakfast with real homemade maple syrup.
Summer- My friends and I do an annual boating outing the last week of August (right before school starts). We all bring a lot of food, relax on the boat all day, go tubing, etc. It is our end-of-summer celebration
Fall- My family has gone to the same harvest festival for as long as I've been alive- I've only missed one year and that was because I was in a serious accident and was in the hospital. We get apple dumplings, apple butter, roasted almonds, etc.
Winter- My sister lives near a park that puts up hundreds of C-mas light displays. We all gather at her place for a party, fill our thermos with spiked cider and walk around the park taking in all the lights. My friends and I try to do an annual winter trip- we usually rent a cabin, go hiking during the day and enjoy or evenings in the hot tub or playing games. What a blast!
An American Girl's Travels
Cooking Thanksgiving dinner with my family. This past year was hard because it was the first thanksgiving after my grandmother passed, I use to help her every year.
Also every Sunday I cook a crazy large dinner for my husband and I. it?s the only day of the week we are both off together.
we have many... one of my favorites... is Christmas day. I have never gotten dressed we stay in jammies all day! My Mom, Step Dad, 2 sisters their husbands, 4 nieces and my DH, DD and me all wear new matching jammies every year.
I have never in all my 29 years got out of my jams on Christmas day... we travel every year to my Mom's everyone shows up in jammies!! I love it!!
For me, much of the fun and reward of parenting comes from sharing these traditions with my kids and husband. We are also a family who engages in a lot of different activities/rituals/traditions.
So I applaud your enthusiasm for wanting to get started right away on this part of parenting.
But, after doing this for 10 years, I want to offer some advice:
--Flexibility: traditions are important, but they become less meaningful if your family becomes enslaved to doing things the same way every year.
--Patience: don't be too premature about launching some of these activities and traditions. Really think about what makes each tradition meaningful and what age child(ren) would most appreciate the activity or tradition. Sometimes if you hold off a year, it allows the activity to live up to its potential as a "meaningful tradition" and prevents it from being a "gigantic hassle." In other words, every parent dreams of the day when they'll take their child to the zoo. But the zoo is big, tiring, and the animals are far away and probably sleeping when you walk by their enclosures. A 2 year old doesn't understand this. A 2 year old understands PetSmart, where the animals are six inches from your face and you can leave at a moment's notice if you get cranky.
--Humility: children like to suggest and be involved in the creation of family traditions too. If you impose too many from the start, your children won't be able to add any! And if you attempt an activity and it bombs, just let it go down in the annals of your family history.
I learned all of these "tips" because of painful personal experience. The best tip of all is to have fun!
ITA with Neverblushed.
I love holidays and traditions, but it's so easy to put a ton of pressure on yourself to make things "perfect."
Halloween is one of DH's and my favorite holidays. I have a theater degree and love to build costumes; DH is a creative person and enjoys costuming as well. We're looking forward to the day we can include the kids in this with us, but right now, they're little and they just don't get it yet. So we're holding off instead of going all out.
Ditto Christmas. My mom went over the top for Christmas with baking and cooking and decorating and wrapping, and it was always fun. But right now, when they're small, we're keeping things light. Whatever we're doing can't stress us out. In fact, last year I didn't even wrap the kids' presents; I just arranged them neatly and let the kids each go after their own pile of gifts.
The one tradition we got going for their birthdays is that we bought a handmade journal for each child on her/his first birthday. Both DH and I write a letter in it every year and we put in a picture of each of us with the child. It doesn't take long, and right now it doesn't involve them much (except for us reading the letters to the kids), but we hope it will be something they treasure as they get older.
Halloween
All my cousins, sisters and I would go to my grandparents house and trick or treat in their neighborhood. (I grew up in the country ie no street lights or sidewalks) so we go into town to my dad's parent's house.
Christmas
We had a Christmas bear that my four sisters and I would take turns sleeping with the week before Christmas
Christmas Eve my family & my dad's side of the family all would go to the Christmas Eve service at the church we all grew up attending.
We have three Christmases in one day every year. My parents' house 7am, my dad's side 10:30am and my mom's side starting between 4pm-5pm and ending around 9pm-10pm. I love it.
Summer
We'd spend a week camping with my dad's side of the family. That ended the year I was 14.
We'd spend a week at my great grandparent's house. My great grandpa died when I was 10 and my great grandma developed dementia about the same time. So we stopped going there too.
I just want to say I LOVE this thread!
Autumn/usually early October: my family (parents, sister, BIL, niece & nephew) go to the apple orchard, pick apples, take family pictures, then one of us (usually my mom) hosts everyone for dinner. Hot cider, wine, and good company. My family doesn't celebrate any holidays (Thanksgiving, Xmas, etc) so this is as close as we come to a Thanksgiving-type family celebration ever year, so I love it all the more for that. I do celebrate the holidays and don't have the same religious beliefs as my family, so having this tradition is so important to me personally, it helps me to feel like i'm not missing out on everything with them
I'm not married or have a family of my own yet, but I LOVE, LOVE thinking about the traditions I will start with my own family some day. Especially this time of year, I get such a "craving" for this kind of stuff. Thanks to the OP for starting such a great discussion!!