Do you have or know of a unique tradition? Something practiced by your family or even just a personal or individual tradition. Perhaps the tradition is related to a holiday but it could also be a unique practice used in raising children, starting school or anything. We welcome your posts and comments below.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Family Traditions
Do you have any fun, unique family traditions that you would like to share? It could be related to a Holiday or not. Post your story below as a comment.
11 comments:
Anonymous
said...
There is a story by another guy with the last name of Wright about a couple who had a Christmas tradition of saving for gifts by dropping extra change in a jar during the year. The story goes that the “Christmas Jar” tradition turned into a giving one when a youngster gave the couples savings away one year. Because of this story I believe thousands of Christmas Jars are being contributed to in homes all over the world then given away each year around Christmas.
A few years as the wife was putting together Christmas Cards, she decided to send one out and wish Merry Christmas to someone we don’t know. It has become a family tradition and now we get Christmas cards back from many of them. We now have exchanged cards and family letters with more than one family for several years. We know all about them from years of cards and letters but we have never met face to face or talked.
One of our children has become pen pals and facebook friends with the children of one of these families.
My Grandfather had a job during the depression and as a Christmas bonus he got an apple. Most of the guys sucked them down but my grandfather took his home and cut it up to share with his whole family on Christmas eve. Now on Christmas eve I do that with my family as a way to honor him, because he truly was a great man, and to keep in check all that we really have, even before Christmas morning.
We have 'Happy Pants' Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house. We all wear plaid pajama bottoms and white t shirts to dinner so that we are comfortable, can eat as much as we want and then go straight to the couch to watch TV and 'hang out'. We started this tradition in 2001 when my sister adopted her son and it was his first Thanksgiving. He gets a kick out of it every year because he wants pants that match his Pappy's.
Each school year on the first and last day I have lunch with my 2 kids at their school. I take a picture of them, their friends, and if I can remember, a picture of me with them, too. I am always surprised at how much they look forward to me coming on those 2 days...and how much they change over the year! This started 4 years ago when my son was in kindergarten. Now he is in 3rd grade and my daughter is in 1st grade. I'm hoping to make it all the way through elementary school before I am told (politely of course) that I don't need to be there :-)
I have three daughters. For the past many years, when Billy Joel comes to Minneapolis, we go see him as a family. I raised them on his music (as well as others), and this event always makes for wonderful memories.
A few years back for Christmas I gave my parents a memory jar. I bought a really pretty piece of pottery with a lid and inside of it were slips of paper for every day for a year. I emailed and called their close friends and asked them to write down their memories of my parents. I then transformed them onto those little slips of paper. And I added many of my own childhood memories and just reasons why I felt so blessed to have them as parents. My mom could not help herself and definitely dipped into the jar more than once a day!! The gift was a huge success and one that has now become a Christmas tradition. And the bonus was that it became a gift to me as well because I learn so much about the younger mom and dad through their friend's memories.
My parents instigated a birthday tradition that is continued in my own family for the past 21 years. For our birthday breakfast we have ice cream and froot loops....or any sweet cereal. It's not a real b'day without it.
This is kind of a unique practice that has become sort of a tradition. When I was growing up my family would gather often at dinner or a weekly Family Home Evening and talk to each other. As you would expect we became closer than many other families that we knew. Years later, siblings have their own families and live all over the country which makes it hard to stay close like we used to. Several years ago, when technology allowed, we set up a private “chat room” on the internet. We now set a time each week when we can all get into the room and visit with each other like we used to.
When I was growing up started doing math in school, I discovered that I was kind of a numbers geek. Turned out that my siblings were too. We especially liked repeating numbers and when we started telling time and discovered digital clocks, we were all fascinated when the clock read 11:11. We would always make it a point wherever we were to look at the clock at 11:11. Since we all knew that we were looking at the clock at the same time no matter where we were, it started to make us think of each other. Now that all of us in the family are grown and living miles apart, we take that special moment each day to look at the clock and think about each other. There have been some feelings of closeness and even some phone calls and special family conversations have come about because of our 11:11 tradition.
I know of a couple that has a tradition of writing and exchanging letters on Valentines morning. They often spend quite a bit of time each year making a list and notes for this letter.
11 comments:
There is a story by another guy with the last name of Wright about a couple who had a Christmas tradition of saving for gifts by dropping extra change in a jar during the year. The story goes that the “Christmas Jar” tradition turned into a giving one when a youngster gave the couples savings away one year. Because of this story I believe thousands of Christmas Jars are being contributed to in homes all over the world then given away each year around Christmas.
A few years as the wife was putting together Christmas Cards, she decided to send one out and wish Merry Christmas to someone we don’t know. It has become a family tradition and now we get Christmas cards back from many of them. We now have exchanged cards and family letters with more than one family for several years. We know all about them from years of cards and letters but we have never met face to face or talked.
One of our children has become pen pals and facebook friends with the children of one of these families.
My Grandfather had a job during the depression and as a Christmas bonus he got an apple. Most of the guys sucked them down but my grandfather took his home and cut it up to share with his whole family on Christmas eve. Now on Christmas eve I do that with my family as a way to honor him, because he truly was a great man, and to keep in check all that we really have, even before Christmas morning.
We have 'Happy Pants' Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house. We all wear plaid pajama bottoms and white t shirts to dinner so that we are comfortable, can eat as much as we want and then go straight to the couch to watch TV and 'hang out'. We started this tradition in 2001 when my sister adopted her son and it was his first Thanksgiving. He gets a kick out of it every year because he wants pants that match his Pappy's.
Each school year on the first and last day I have lunch with my 2 kids at their school. I take a picture of them, their friends, and if I can remember, a picture of me with them, too. I am always surprised at how much they look forward to me coming on those 2 days...and how much they change over the year! This started 4 years ago when my son was in kindergarten. Now he is in 3rd grade and my daughter is in 1st grade. I'm hoping to make it all the way through elementary school before I am told (politely of course) that I don't need to be there :-)
I have three daughters. For the past many years, when Billy Joel comes to Minneapolis, we go see him as a family. I raised them on his music (as well as others), and this event always makes for wonderful memories.
A few years back for Christmas I gave my parents a memory jar. I bought a really pretty piece of pottery with a lid and inside of it were slips of paper for every day for a year. I emailed and called their close friends and asked them to write down their memories of my parents. I then transformed them onto those little slips of paper. And I added many of my own childhood memories and just reasons why I felt so blessed to have them as parents. My mom could not help herself and definitely dipped into the jar more than once a day!! The gift was a huge success and one that has now become a Christmas tradition. And the bonus was that it became a gift to me as well because I learn so much about the younger mom and dad through their friend's memories.
My parents instigated a birthday tradition that is continued in my own family for the past 21 years. For our birthday breakfast we have ice cream and froot loops....or any sweet cereal. It's not a real b'day without it.
Wendy from Brisbane Australia
This is kind of a unique practice that has become sort of a tradition. When I was growing up my family would gather often at dinner or a weekly Family Home Evening and talk to each other. As you would expect we became closer than many other families that we knew. Years later, siblings have their own families and live all over the country which makes it hard to stay close like we used to. Several years ago, when technology allowed, we set up a private “chat room” on the internet. We now set a time each week when we can all get into the room and visit with each other like we used to.
When I was growing up started doing math in school, I discovered that I was kind of a numbers geek. Turned out that my siblings were too. We especially liked repeating numbers and when we started telling time and discovered digital clocks, we were all fascinated when the clock read 11:11. We would always make it a point wherever we were to look at the clock at 11:11. Since we all knew that we were looking at the clock at the same time no matter where we were, it started to make us think of each other. Now that all of us in the family are grown and living miles apart, we take that special moment each day to look at the clock and think about each other. There have been some feelings of closeness and even some phone calls and special family conversations have come about because of our 11:11 tradition.
I know of a couple that has a tradition of writing and exchanging letters on Valentines morning. They often spend quite a bit of time each year making a list and notes for this letter.
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