What are your family traditions?

[MayBaby2007]

I didn't have many growing up (or none that were consistant, nothing was). I want strong family traditions/memories for my daughter and was hoping to get ideas off of some of you, if you don't mind. ?

Here's a couple I plan to do:

*DD was 12 weeks on my 25th bday so we got professional photo's together. I've decided that every year on my bday I'm getting photo's of us together, as one tradition (an etched in stone tradition so when she's 16/17 and independent...she will know that we HAVE to do that ). (Mothers day, big holidays, her bday as well).

*The day after Thanksgiving, I plan on taking her to a Christmas Tree farm and cutting down our own Christmas Tree, let it settle for a day and then decorate it the following day.

*Maybe not a tradition but--all of those senitmental material objects (like my favorite onezie that she always wore, those itty bitty shoes, her favorite rattle, etc) I've turned into Christmas ornaments. That way, every year those special memories can be pulled out of storage and displayed/talked about. I plan on saving things "here and there" throughout her lifetime and adding them to the tree/wreath

*Taking her to a pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins--on a set day every year (October 1st or so? I have no idea when they're ready ).

That's about all I have. I'd really love to hear about family traditions that you have, that you woudn't mind sharing. Thanks!

[mistymama]

I the family traditions we created growing up, and have continued them so far with my son.

Christmas was always such a magical time with my family, and we have several traditions I carry on (and so do my other 3 sisters!)

*The day after Thanksgiving we would always go as a family to pick out our Christmas tree. That evening we would play music, string the lights, and decorate the tree together by the light of the tree, and a fire.

*On Christmas Eve we open a gift of PJ's and put them on right away. Then we open a few small gifts from eachother around the tree. Now that we are all adults, the evening has grown to include a few cocktails while we assemble Alex's gifts from Santa and set everything out.

*Christmas morning we bake a HUGE breakfast together. It's so much fun to work in the kitchen with my sisters, and produce a buffet style breakfast for the family.

Other traditions that don't involve Christmas include:

*Halloween - My parent's street does a huge bash where the road is closed, the headless horseman drives through and there are literally thousands of people trick or treating. We hit a few houses with ds, but mostly we invite friends over, sit on the front porch and hand out candy and watch all the adorable kids in costumes come by. DS loves this tradition and prefers to hand out candy to actually trick or treating!

*On Birthdays my Mom always had a special red plate the b'day person got to use that said "Today is your special day" You got to pick what was for dinner (we each had a favorite meal we would ask my Mom to cook) and we would sit together as a family, eat, open presents and have cake.

I'm sure there are more, but those are the traditions that stick out in my mind, and that I make an effort to continue with Alex.

[aussiemum]

Personally, our family has taken on a few traditions, & ignored everything else. We are culturally mixed- Australian/AMerican, living in AUstralia- and the seasons are opposite to what I grew up with, which can be challenging. It took me years to get used to the idea of Christmas in the middle of summer!

In our family, we do Thanksgiving (last Friday night of November) with other Australian-American friends- no matter how hot it is we still have a roast turkey dinner. And when we are in New South Wales for CHristmas, we go cut a tree to decorate from my in-laws property. If we are near the beach, we go for a swim/surf sometime early on Christmas Day.

Every Halloween, we have a big house party, with bobbing for apples, costumes, lolly-hunts, games, etc for the little ones, & adult games & drinkies for the big ones......

And on Australia Day (Jan 26th) we go to our friend's house for a Triple J hottest 100 party*...... solid tradition, but I think you have to be true-blue Aussie to get that one......

* Triple J is a national radio station, & each January counts down the top 100 most requested songs of the past year.

[Phoenix~Mama]

I LOVE family traditions!

With my family growing up and what we have started with our family... Every Christmas morning my Mom would have us wait on the stairs while she went down to check that Santa came and make us hot chocolate... this went on into our early 20's. lol Then she'd take our picture on the stairs... so looking through albums we have a pic on the stairs for every year... as we got older and our fiancee/husbands were over they'd be in the picture too... no one escaped the stair picture. lol

We did that with our Christmas this year with DSD and it will continue.

We also wrote DSD a letter from Santa this year, and I want us to keep that up as long as possible too.


A new tradition for me, DP and his daughter always went to the Pumpkin Patch to get a pumpkin for Halloween.. this year I got to go too, and we will continue bringing all the family there each year.


Every Father's day weekend is my Mom's family's family reunion... we are almost on year 20 of this now.


My Mom's family also has a Christmas party every year and we each bring a Christmas ornament and a story is read which has a lot of interesting passing words in it, so the ornaments get switched around and each person ends up with an ornament that is to be labled with the family name that brought it and the year.

FYI: My cousins and I have talked and we plan to continue having all of these things for a long time, even after the elders are gone...


I beleive next summer will start the tradition of either a shore or camping trip with my Mom... she has been looking forward to being a grandparent for years and is really excited to have family vacations with us. We would have gone this year, but with the wedding it just isn't feasible. lol Though we may still go camping in September.


Oh! We also did the special birthday dinners where we got to pick what we were having and Mama would make it for us.... she still will do this too. I love my Mama!


Those are most of the major ones I can think of...