Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Traditions
What are some of your family traditions?
I have to do a presentation in one of my classes on Thursday and explain a tradition to them. The problem? I can't think of one for me to use. So, I thought hearing about yours would maybe spark a few memories.
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My favroite memories of traditions are on holidays (although we had everyday traditions like Donuts or Tamales for breakfast on Saturdays). A couple that I can think of. Christmas time we always: Visit Candycane Lane (A bunch of houses crazy decorated), be secret santa for someone, pick out a tree and hang ornaments, wait till after everyone is ready for the day before opening presents, Making Tamales.
We recently started a new family tradition for Thanksgiving: Write down something you are thankful for, put it in a balloon, and then release the balloon (the ones that are safe to release).
Hope that this gets some ideas going!
We have a movie night. This is a tradition that "our" family (me, hubby and son) has started. We pick out 1 movie each week, pop some popcorn and watch the movie together. Also, we always sit down to dinner every night together. That is also a tradition that we have started. It is always us at the dinner table with no TV, talking about our day. We do this regardless of what our dinner is, whether it be McDonalds, pizza, or something that I cook. These are a few traditions that I think are a little different thatn the rest of the responses that I think you will get. BTW, this is Leda.
I think most of our traditions are pretty standard: Easter dinner, Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner, decorating the tree, easter egg hunts, etc. We also celebrate birthdays - we try to get as much family as possible together to have birthday cake for everybody's birthdays. Some are doubled up, and some aren't, but everybody is special, so we make sure to celebrate them on their birthday.
A couple months ago, I randomly declared Fridays to be Chocolate Fridays, and every Friday, Dh and I would go get a candy bar or brownies or something. It has since morphed into Pizza and Chocolate Fridays, and we almost always watch a movie or two while we have our pizza.
Another tradition of ours is to go through our goodnight routine every night (I love you, sleep well, drive safely, I love/respect you, goodnight, and then kiss). It sounds pretty corny, but we never ever go to sleep without saying it, and we've been doing it since shortly after we got married (nearly 2 years now).
We having a thankful tree at thanksgiving and everyone writes something on a leaf and hangs it on the tree and then before we eat all the leaves are read out loud so everyone can hear!
Every halloween, growing up, we went swimming instead of trick or treating. We would stop at important family members homes to trick or treat but that was it. This year I carried on the tradition with my kids and I am so glad that I did. It was worth it.
Ahh! Traditions are my favorite. Whenever I get complaints from my "significant other" about plans, I say, "but it's a tradition!"
Here are a few of ours...
Thanksgiving - the daily grateful jar. We read all of the notes placed in it on Thanksgiving.
Christmas - Every Christmas Eve grandma gives everyone new pj's and we wake up to monkey bread.
I've just started blogging, but you can read about some of our latest at www.itsatradition.com
In my husband's family, my mother-in-law knits huge fun stockings and hangs them up the bannister. During the Christmas season, each family member writes down nice things about each other and secretly puts them in each stocking. On Christmas Eve they each pull out the nice notes and quietly read them. I think the kind words strengthen family relationships and leave everyone with good feelings!
A tradition we do every year is watch movies or a show together as a family, all snuggled on the couch and have hot chocolate.
Halloween- The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
Christmas- A Christmas Story and Rodolph the Red Nose Reindeer
Every Christmas we do a White Elephant Gift Exchange on my Mom's side of the family...but we don't buy gag gifts, we give really good gifts (price range: $20-$30)...boys bring guy gifts, girls bring girl gifts. We started doing this when our family began to grow (people got married, had kids) and we didn't want my grandparents to feel obligated to buy everyone gifts. We also do an annual recipe contest. The girls make either an appetizer or dessert dish. The boys judge and whoever wins gets this goofy ring that we pass around! It's really the pride of winning that is the award...bragging rights for the whole year!
Good luck! I know all about college...I'm a senior right now and dying to graduate. Love your blog!
-Sierra
http://creativekdesigns.blogspot.com
Hmmmm... spinach cheese pie for my birthday dinner, junk food day (eating all the sugary stuff that I generally say no to on the 1st day of summer vacation), making apple dumplings the first weekend in October (not sure how that one started!), ... Those are the main ones that come to mind that don't revolve around a holiday... but they all still involve food :) Good luck with your project!
Our tradition when I lived at home is to clean house BIG TIME the day after Thanksgiving and to decorate for Christmas the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We always decorate on the same schedule now that I'm in my own house, much to my husband's dismay. But I'm already listening to Christmas music so I love having as much Christmas time as possible!
Here's a funny tradition we have. On New Year's Eve Mother Goose comes to visit and leaves a little present (a book, or a small toy or something of that nature). It always ends the holiday season on a fun note!
My NEW tradition is NOT cooking Sunday dinner for her daughter and husband when she says she doesn't have any traditions!
we make Christmas ornaments and crafts every year.
Every Sunday my family has menudo for breakfast.
The day after Christmas the whole family gets together to make tomales.
Easter Sunday we do the traditional egg hunt, only it's with confetti filled eggs which we then smash on each other.
Every year, we visit the same hotel on the Oregon Coast for our vacation. My 8 yr old daughter calls it "her beach". We participate in the big bonfire, making s'mores each visit.
Each holiday season, we create a gingerbread house. This will be the first year our 22 month old will be able to "help". We have so many traditions at Christmas, but this is one of my daughter's favorites.
Another tradition I have, not related to any holiday, is writing my daughter a little note on her lunch napkin whenever she takes a cold lunch. In 3 years of doing it, I've forgotten once and boy did I hear about it!
We have a strange one that isn't centered around holidays. Whenever we have tacos for dinner - we eat in the living room. We rarely have taco's - so it's always a treat when it happens.
And since we never eat in the living room normally - the kids think it's really cool.
My husband and I watch every Utah Jazz game--either on tv or in person. We also give each other something Jazz oriented for Christmas every year.
I leave for work before he gets up in the morning. He always tells me to "drive safe." I love this tradition the best because it is so simple.
I just stumbled across your blog and hit follow just as soon as I saw your blog name!
All our traditions revolve around holidays and are pretty typical. :)
My husband and I have started getting frame ornaments with the year engraved and putting a picture in it of an important event that happened that year. For example, 2005 holds our wedding photo, 2006 - us at my Dad's wedding, 2007 - my college graduation.
A few Christmas Traditions with our family:
Making sugar cookies and decorating and EATING them! ;)
Every year we look for a new ornament to represent something monumental from the previous year
(last year was our 2nd born's 1st christmas, this year we're looking for an ornament to represent our beach vacation!)
ps- I'm gearing up to do my FIRST Modge Podge project! Woo hoo!
We have two family traditions that we really keep. Chinese food on Sunday nights. (I try to make the healthy version once a month), and here's the weird one: Potato Skins on Christmas Eve-Eve! How that one got started is a mystery but we do it every year!
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