Last fall, our older son turned 3 and really started getting excited about holidays, birthdays, and traditions. Our second son was also born, which solidified our existence as a family unit, and I realized that their relationship as brothers will (probably) be the longest relationship in either of their lives.
I was suddenly obsessed with crafting our family culture and setting up traditions. Traditions, as explained by “Psychology Today,” are more than just fun things to do as a family. They shape your family’s bonds, help impart values to your children, and provide a framework for family members to learn how to relate to joy, disappointment, grief, and other humans. While we still haven’t made the time to write a robust family mission statement, we have intentionally chosen more rituals, both large and small, annual and weekly, for our family.
Some of these are large and tied to holidays:
- Taking a pajama drive to look at Christmas lights in December
- Riding the T downtown to see the big holiday tree and stopping for hot chocolate on the way home
- Trick-or-treating
- Coloring the placecards for Thanksgiving dinner
- Planting our garden Mother’s Day weekend
- Helping to bake and frost birthday cakes
- Making snow ice cream on snowy days
Some are smaller weekly traditions:
- Taco Tuesday
- A special Wednesday breakfast
- Homemade pizza and family movie night on Saturday
- Sandwich Sunday with board games
- Lighting candles during dinner
Some traditions aren’t tied to any particular day or time of year, but they are part of our family’s repertoire of regular adventures:
- Hiking in the Fells
- Visiting Constitution Beach
- Waking up early and driving to New Hampshire or Maine for a day of exploring
- Camping in the summer
- Sharing a doughnut at the park
I’m always looking to add more traditions to our family. What traditions are part of your family culture?
So fun! We have lots of fun family traditions and really savor them…..so fun to see yours! 🙂