Rituals/Traditions

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

So I'm reading this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Family-Tr...family+rituals

On family traditions and rituals. It covers the big stuff like how you celebrate major holidays to the little stuff like what you do on a snow day, how you celebrate birthdays or major accomplishments, the first/last day of school, etc.

Having a 7 month old, this is something I've considered a lot right now especially since we're far from family and I want to start doing these things now so she always remembers them.

So, what were your favorite family traditions growing up and/or what are your favorites that you do with your own family? I'm especially interested in the every day stuff.

Mine:
-We did a dance on my parents anniversary every year (pranced in a circle holding hands until we all fell down)
-My dad wore the same tie (with our school colors) to EVERY soccer game in high school
-On Valentine's day, my mom would mush banana into a heart shape and add sugar and jam to the top
-Picking what we had for dinner on our birthdays

Some others I've heard that I like/plan doing for my own kids:
-Writing them a letter on each birthday about the past year
-Ice cream for dinner once a summer
-Giving them a book to read on Christmas morning at the foot of their beds

[MsSassyBaskets]

T&S, this is something I've been thinking about lately. I'm not a parent yet, but plan to be some day, and I feel the need to be a bit discriminating when it comes to the traditions I'll teach my kid(s). DH and I are atheists, and I don't want to celebrate traditionally religious holidays at home, but at the same time our extended families are Christian and we're not going to stop participating in family get-togethers that center around the holidays. It will take a lot of thinking about how to teach kids to understand and respect our families' traditions while creating some new, nonreligious traditions that focus on what's important to us. Did you find this book to be slanted toward any one religion? Religion in general?

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

It actually includes rituals from a variety of religious and non-religious backgrounds. It's totally wide open.

One idea I LOVED (but might be too lazy for) is the creation of a family almanac where important things get recorded as the years go by and when the kids are older, you had a record of the important milestones and what day they happened on!

[spotty_dog]

My co-op preschool includes parent education, and this is a topic near and dear to our educator. It's really interesting. "That's what we do in our family" is pretty powerful. Like the way my dad's family always got to choose their favorite dinner and kind of cake (I will never forget that my daddy gets fried chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, and chocolate cake with white icing for his birthday.) Or the way my family always had hot chocolate after sledding on a snowy day. The preschool teacher mentioned that a ritual in her family is always to tell the pre-teen and older children as they leave to hang out with friends, "Make good choices!" I'll look up my notes from that lecture and see if I can jog my memory about things that intrigued me from others and things I pointed out for myself...

[hanginginthere]

We did a ritual on Christmas morning that I loved- we all piled into mom and dad's bed and mom brought us in our stockings- we opened them and played with whatever was in them while mom and dad showered and got dressed..then we all went to see what Santa brought...we ate breakfast and went back to Santa stuff while mom and dad put stuff for dinner in the oven...then we did tree presents and we did one present at a time while mom wrote what the gift was and who gave it to us- so that we could write thank you notes later on...Christmas lasted all day this way and we always remembered who gave us what gift and appreciated it more than if we just all tore into stuff at once...

[niener]

I'm following this thread with much interest as well. My immediate family was/is all but devoid of tradition. My extended family has a few, such as Greed/White Elephant game every Christmas and the same menu every Thanksgiving. Creating traditions for my eventual family is something I'm very interested in doing but like MsSassyBaskets and her DH, my DH and I are not religious so I'd very much like to find some new traditions for us and still be able to participate in the religious-oriented gatherings with my extended family every year.

[samssugarmomma]

We also do the birthday tradition that the birthday boy or girl gets to pick what they want for dinner and what kind of cake and ice cream that they want. I grew up with this and was shocked when I learned that DH never got to pick what he had for dinner on his birthday.

For Christmas, I only use Santa themed paper for the gifts from Santa Claus. Sadly, I don't think that any of my kids have noticed this yet. 8 (

We always take a picture on the first day of school and the last day of school and compare how much they have grown. I don't make a sign for them to hold though...just a picture of the kid in their clothes.

We always have Italian food on Christmas eve and Chinese food on New Years Day.

We always make a ton of cookies in the fall and each of my kids is "responsible" for a certain kind. We take a few days and sample each kind for dinner then freeze the rest for later.

[alison]

I'm not religious at all, but dh grew up in Germany and Christmas is much more a cultural tradition nowadays than religious. I know no Germans who go to church, other than for three occasions in their lives--baptism, marriage and funeral.

We do Christmas the German way, with an Advent calendar for dd that my mil made and helps fill, Christmas cookies, St. Nicholas Day, etc etc. The full shebang, except for roasting a goose. No thanks to that! .

Thanksgiving is a big one to me, and so is NYD, because of my Japanese heritage. Other than that, we celebrate our birthdays. Dh bakes a cake, and I take dinner requests.

[Deebs]

I think our birthday traditions are the best of all of our traditions...

In the morning, the birthday child wakes up to a balloon bouquet in his/her room
Birthday child choses dinner
Birthday child gets a cake decorated by mom - whatever he/she wants
Dad takes the day off!

When we were kids, we always went to "steal" a live Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, and then decorated it while waiting for midnight mass. It started because my mom decided one year that she wanted one, but is allergic. If we got it on Christmas Eve, she'd be okay, but by then the tree sellers are closed. Many did leave out signs though saying to help yourself to a tree. We always had an artificial tree for the season, and then the live tree was decorated with all of our homemade ornaments, popcorn and lucky charms strings, etc.

[Thirteen]

I've really been pushing this in our household, too.

Since we are an interracial family, I want to hold true to some of the cultural traditions (and have thus far):
-DS's Baek-il (100 days celebration): We took family photos, and photos just of him
-Ds's Doljangchi (1st birthday celebration): I couldn't go balls out (because that kind of planning/execution is not my forte), but I did search high and low for a hanbok (traditional outfit) that he wore. My mom took pictures of him in his hanbok. We laid out multiple items that represent his "future profession" on a blanket at the birthday party, and he chose one. (Of course, it had to be the damn stethoscope!)
-Fluency in language. DH speaks to DS in his native tongue, and we are actively looking for places in our area that teach "language school" so that DS can learn characters. DH is completely fluent/literate, but doesn't have the time to devote to characters. I also will be attending "school" with DS, because I don't want to be a hypocrite ("You have to learn this, but Mommy doesn't.")
-Noodle dishes on birthdays (long life).
-Seaweed soup, post-partum (the heat of the soup, plus the seaweed, supposedly brings the mother good luck, and helps her heal). DH's paternal grandmother made it for me, and I was so grateful.

Some of mine from childhood:
-Opening 1 present on Xmas Eve
-Building a gingerbread house/decorating it on Xmas Eve
-Eating corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day
-Cake with family on birthdays, even if there's no party (AND YOU WILL LIKE IT, DH!)
-Buying toys for the Salvation Army drop off sites around Christmas.
-Sparklers or fireworks on New Year's Eve.

What I want to incorporate more:
-I like the photo of First Day of School, Same Pose idea
-We pray together as a family, every night, before DS goes to sleep.
-A "Day with Mom/Day with Dad" - undivided, special attention
-One family vacation a year (whatever that looks like)

[MDPhDWife]

Lots of great ideas here!

Holiday/Annual:
-We do a white elephant every year at Christmas and also I let the kids open one gift on Xmas eve.
-Every 4th of July I make a flag cake with blueberries and strawberries.
-Birthdays are HUGE for us, so we usually have birthday weekends. Birthday person always gets to pick meals (usually restaurants since we'll dine out for the occasion) and desserts. -We also take a first day of school photo, but I wish we had thought to take the last day. I guess we could start.

More of the minor daily ones:
-Instead of saying I love you, we'll squeeze the other persons hand three times. This is great during times when it would be inappropriate to say it aloud.
-We have dinner themes like "Man Cook Monday" when DH cooks dinner (more often picks up takeout when he's swamped), Taco Tuesday, etc.
-We do the high/low thing at dinner where we talk about our highs and lows of the day. We'll often either play the alphabet game or a card game while eating dinner as well.
-Growing up we always took an annual family vacation, and it is one of my favorite childhood memories. We work really hard to do the same for our kiddos. We also try really hard to take an annual vacation sans kids.

[Curegirl]

New, matching pajamas for the whole family every Christmas
Homemade donuts made by Dad every Sunday morning
Back to school shopping and fashion show every August
First day of school picture every year
Date nights for parents every rainy day
Dad brought home flowers for Mom every Friday
Buche du Noel (French Yule log cake) on Christmas Eve
Halloween themed birthday party

[SoonerTexan]

Some of mine from childhood:
-Opening 1 present on Xmas Eve
-Building a gingerbread house/decorating it on Xmas Eve
-Eating corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day
-Cake with family on birthdays, even if there's no party (AND YOU WILL LIKE IT, DH!)
-Buying toys for the Salvation Army drop off sites around Christmas.
-Sparklers or fireworks on New Year's Eve.

Hey! We have some of the same--first present on Christmas Eve (but wait until Christmas Day for the rest), Corned Beef and Cabbage (DH says he wont eat it though) and the cake with families...J can be a pain about that too!

Others:
St. Nicholas Day--my mom would put candy or a religious item in our lined up shoes. Every year my dad would come home yelling, "Why are all these damn shoes out. Put them away" It became part of the tradition. This is now N's birthday, so we'll have to make it extra special. She was a great "shoe stuffer!"

Since we have 9 siblings between us, we do "secret santa" for gift exchanges between siblings. It saves money and makes it more special.

We always decorated for fall in sept. (My mom has these light up jack o lanterns we've all loved since childhood) and Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.

I make a King Cake and cajun food on Mardi Gras. From scratch, from an authentic cookbook. We do beignets sometimes too.

DH's family does a massive easter egg hunt with "golden eggs" and sweet gift card prizes. You are released to the hunt when MIL says your age (she counts from 0 on up)

I make Christmas cookies every year

We went to Silver Dollar City for Christmas a lot as a child...not every year, but often enough that it holds a very special place in my heart. I cant wait to take my own kids and stay in a cozy cabin.

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Family vs Family football game with my in-laws and my family. This might not last long when the rest of our siblings get married, but it is SO much fun. Except for the football game because DH's family beats us every year.

Ones I'd like to try:

--More birthday recognition. DH and I do a fancy dinner, but I'm not sure what we will do for kids. I've started to get lax on birthdays and it isn't great.
--First day of school pictures and ice cream outing
--Mimosas on Christmas morning. My family is fun when we're tipsy.
--A "family" vacation and "couples" vacation.
--Recognition on our anniversary. Our 1st anniversary DH took me back to the place we first met and kissed me and then we read some of the dozens of letters we wrote to each other in high school. Last year was a few days before the Step 1, so we didn't do much. We live just down the street from where we met now, so there is no excuse for not going back and reliving a few moony high school moments.

[SoonerTexan]

PS...this is an awesome thread that makes me feel all fuzzy.

And I forgot to add Starbucks Holiday drinks. PSL in September, Gingerbread Lattes in Nov.

[corn poffi]

Wow, my family is lame. The only tradition we have is oyster stew on Christmas Eve. And I'm allergic to shellfish. So it's a pretty shitty tradition if you ask me! So I guess my only family tradition is me not eating that night.

My personal tradition is for the 4th of July. My girlfriends from high school and I always go to the fireworks in a local resort town. My friend's parents live on the lake, so we watch from their beach. It's so fun! Then, the day after is usually my BFF's dad's birthday party. It's always a huge event, and I've only skipped once since I've known her!