Creating Our Family Traditions
Do you create your own family traditions? Family traditions are patterns of behavior that reflects and reinforces a family’s values, attitudes, or beliefs. They are inherited through parents or ancestry and help provide comfort, security and closer connections.
No matter how big or small, creating memories, stories and special moments can have a profound impact on how we enjoy life. Family traditions help shape our culture and help keep the history of our families alive. They make a lasting imprint of who we are as a whole unit and as individuals.
There are so many different ways we can incorporate tradition. They range from:
- attending special events
- doing certain activities or projects
- a method of celebration
- family quotes, sayings or songs
- family recipes
- family heirlooms
- weekly, monthly or annual practices
- specific vacations based on time and location
These shared rituals provide consistency giving us something to look forward to and look back on. They impart a feeling of belonging and connectivity. Without family traditions the history, stories and memories of our family would be easily lost and forgotten.
My husband and I have had the privilege of creating traditions with our children. Here are a few:
- crocheting new themed hats for the entire family every year
- family movie nights
- making homemade customized milkshakes on the weekends
- having our disassemble sessions
- learning how to sew with my daughter (my other daughter will join us when she’s old enough)
- annual family photo
- big breakfast Saturday’s
We really love having our own customs in place that the kids enjoy and can be passed down to their families as well.
However, there is an area that needs improving and starting this year we will be working on that.
For the twelve years we have been married, we have done almost every major holiday the way our parents want us to. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas we rotate between both our parents’ house bringing our children to join in on the traditions we grew up with. We think it’s important that our kids get a sense of where they came from, how strong our beliefs are and where our culture stemmed from. We want them to walk a little in our shoes to feel those joys and special moments just as we did when we were their age.
However, we believe along with celebrating old traditions it’s just as important to create new ones with your growing family. We want to leave a lasting impression on our children that we loved spending time with them and it was a necessity to do special activities as a family.
The only holiday tradition we have done on our own is creating holiday cards. Starting this Christmas we will be breaking away from our passed down traditions and creating new ones with our family. Our parents are already having a hard time with this knowing we won’t always be around for the holidays. They argue that our kids need to be around their entire family to keep a close connection with them. They feel the holidays should be spent with extended loved ones and not just on our own. Also, we should continue practicing what was given to us growing up.
Here’s our response to our parents:
You not only had the opportunity to pass down old traditions to us as kids but you were free to make your own new ones as well. So why won’t you let us to do the same with our children?
The holidays are not the only time to spend with family. We do extended family visits and events year round so our kids do know their family and have already made strong connections with them.
Regardless if they choose to accept or understand we have already made the decision to continue forward with our plans. We haven’t decided exactly what we’re going to do yet as we don’t participate in the commercialization of Christmas but want it to be very meaningful for our family. We are just excited to have made this important decision which we know will be beneficial for us all!
Has anyone experienced anything similar with their families? Is it hard for your parents to let go to allow you to create your own family traditions?
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I think your logic makes perfect sense on why you have decided to make the change and that will see the importance for your family and i mean you hubby and kids to make your own traditions that will become a big part of your family unit and something your children will treasure
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Thank you for your support. We really want to leave something for our kids to treasure, something that was especially created by us, their parents. We are looking forward to starting :)
I think you should be proud of what your doing it is very special :)
Thank you very much. 😊
Most welcome Have a great day
Hi @crosheille. Such a beautiful story about traditions. I know exactly what you are talking about and how you and your husband feel. The same thing happened to us with our both set of families.
When we started to make our traditions, we talked with each set of parents and told them that we had decided to do the following:
Thanksgiving - spend time with each side of family.
Christmas - stay home and start out own family tradition. 2nd week of holiday since kids were still on break, visit extended family so kids could give hugs and get gifts. They loved this because they said it was like having two Christmas celebrations. They couldn't wait to go see what else the grandparents had for them and celebrate all over again. It gave the grands more time to prepare for us coming.
This could only work because the parents lived close.
Take care.
Wow! Yes your situation and decision sounds exactly like ours.
Thank you for sharing how your family does the holidays. Both sets of our parents live pretty close too which is why it was manageable spending time with both sides over the years.
You're welcome. Here's to making memories. Take care.
creo que tenemos muchas cosas en comun, la familia es lo más importante en nuestras vidas y cada uno de esos momentos que vivimos junto a ellos son los que nos hacen felices.
¡Eso es muy cierto! Es por eso que queremos hacer un esfuerzo para hacer nuestras propias tradiciones y crear recuerdos maravillosos para nuestros hijos. Gracias por tu comentario :)
Alrighty then, the subject of this post is something I know a little bit about @crosheille … 😉
First, I will comment on this …
… and hope, for the sake of you and your family, that both sets (?) of parents will be wise enough to support you and your husband in your decision. For, if they are not, then you (perhaps?) will know more about them afterward, than you do at the moment. And from there, you will hopefully have our Lord’s peace and wisdom, in directing you how best to respond …
The dynamics of our family relationships, in both our immediate and extended families, is an endless source of both joy and aggravation. From the moment we enter this world, to our final breath ... I believe this is a vital part of life, as our Lord reveals to us, in the “refining fires” of His will, what we need to learn through it all, as these people know us better than anyone else.
For my beloved life mate and I, this was less of an issue for us than appears to be the case for you. Why? Simple logistics. We lived hundreds of miles away from both sets of parents, as well as most of our extended families. Later in life, we moved back closer and enjoyed the opportunity to “blend” both the traditions we had established on our own, with those of our extended families. They brought back happy memories of our childhoods, which we greatly enjoyed sharing with our children …
The only thought I would add, as a bit of a caution, is our Lord’s admonition in Ephesians 6:1-3. Since your post does not indicate otherwise, I would assume you and your husband have discussed this and how to keep all of what will unfold from your decision in the proper perspective and balance.
Looking forward, in future posts, to reading more about this …
Have a great day!
#sbi-skip
Thank you for your response and feedback. Yes, I am speaking of both sets of parents. We are praying and hoping they support our decisions as we don’t want this to cause division between us. We love them dearly but we are stewards over our children and have to make decisions we see fit for our family.
I love this statement, it rings so much truth:
I love that you all were able to blend those traditions and have a little bit of both.
Yes we discuss this quite often. In everything we do we keep in mind to honor our parents and not to disrespect them. We kindly and respectfully decline their suggestions, opinions and invitations when it doesn’t line up with the goals of our family.
You inspired me to do a blog with our traditions it’s so good thanks
I come by way to less but I haven’t forgotten about you girls and needleworkmonday friends
Oh great! Glad I could inspire that ;D
Same here! I need to come by your way more often! Love ya mama ~ 😘
We usually rotate where the holidays are spent. Between our family in one town, and more family in another town. We also stay home on occasion and have friends out to the house. This keeps everyone happy (ish) and allows us to do our own thing some of the time.
Lol I like how you said (ish)! 😅
That sounds like a nice rotation plan for you all. I think it’s great you stay home on occasion and have friends come to you. A healthy balance is so important.
Thanks so much for commenting :)
Although we are not Christian at all we still have a lot of Christian traditions :)
I know of others that are very similar in this way.
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