Creating Lasting Family Traditions

When you have kids, there's just something about wanting to create memorable family traditions that will last for years.  Traditions that will stay with your kids into adulthood.  Traditions they will want to carry on with their own families.  For me, it was important to have those moments and memories my kids can look back on with fondness because a childhood without family traditions is not much of a childhood at all.

For many reasons, creating fun traditions for my kids were important to me because I remember the few that I shared with my family growing up and how those memories made me feel.  The main reason, however, that I find myself creating so many great traditions with my kids is because there weren't many when I was young.  Yes, I come from a traditional family and culture.  But as far as special family traditions go, traditions that were created just for us as kids, there weren't that many.

That is why to this day, I hold steadfast to the traditions I have with my kids and make sure to carry them on from year to year.  There are the traditions that we only do once a year at very special times of the year, like for the holidays.  For Easter, we have our scavenger egg hunt, a special breakfast and the kids get their baskets.   For Halloween the kids dress up in costumes and I take their picture for memory's sake. Thanksgiving is a thankful holiday where we share a special meal and recount our blessings and what we are thankful for from the previous months.  And of course, the biggest tradition of them all, celebrating Christmas.

Every year, we celebrate the Christmas season with homemade crafts like making cards and baking goodies to give as gifts.  We watch all the Holiday specials on TV and try to find fun Christmas related activities to do as a family.  And when it comes to birthdays, we, of course,  always have a special celebration every year and that is a tradition that I will forever hold true to. 

Then there are the traditions that aren't just for special holidays and occasions.  Traditions can be something you do daily, like reading a bedtime story to your kids each night. Or something you do weekly, like our Friday night movie night.  Or even the once in a while family game night, where Sorry or Go Fish dominates the afternoon.

When my kids grow up, they'll look back on their childhood and remember all these special and fun traditions we did as a family and have special memories to share with their own families.  Traditions that they will, hopefully, one day pass on to their kids.