I love Jen's question about family traditions. They are SO important! Whether it's having dinner by candlelight whenever you have homemade pizza, sitting in the hallway singing Christmas carols to wake up Mom and Dad on Christmas morning (before looking at the tree and presents!), or eating the hard boiled eggs you hunted Easter morning with toast and cocoa, traditions bring families together.
Now that my Mom has passed away I find myself hanging onto the 1960's cocoa mugs, a candle she had displayed on her dresser, and I have the exact same Christmas albums she had when I was little (Gene Autry and Bing Crosby). Please share your traditions or tell us some you may want to start!
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I guess I haven't written anything because I didn't think our traditions were very exciting. But, here are some of ours.
Birthdays: I always decorate my kids rooms while they are asleep. I tie balloons to the bed or crib, and put up birthday posters. And I always make my kids a birthday cake that represents something they really like that year. Austin's had dinosaurs (3 years in a row), a bug cake, a snake, Elmo, and a fish bowl. Macy's had a bathtub, Blue's Clue's, a castle, and Ariel. It's been fun for me, even though it's a lot of work that lasts about one minute (or less).
Christmas: I ALWAYS watch "It's a Wonderful Life" while I wrap presents. We go to Chinese food or get take-out for Christmas Eve with my extended family. We always have the same thing for Christmas breakfast - breakfast casserole and monkey bread. I make it all the night before. I also write my kids a letter and put it in their stocking every year. Sometimes I write the highlights of the past year, but I always explain how much I love them and what they mean to me. That way, when they are 18 years old and leave home (hopefully), they will have 18 letters that describe how special and amazing they are. One of my mom's friends still does this for all her adult, married kids. She does it every January though because Christmas is so hectic. We've also started taking the money that Greg's parents gives us for gifts for the kids and put it toward a fun activity (because who really needs tons and tons of new toys). One year we went to see "Christmas Carol," and one year we went to the Polar Express on the Heber Valley Railroad.
We are starting a new tradition this month: Every fast Sunday, we are going to break the fast by making breakfast foods for Sunday dinner. We are going to be better at inviting different people from the ward over to eat that night. I'm looking forward to trying new and different breakfast recipes.
I had a friend in High School whose dad always celebrated New Years Day in kind of a fun way. The kids would get to stay up until midnight, and they would go around the house (and the neighborhood) banging pots and pans at the strike of twelve. Then, his dad made a HUGE breakfast for all the kids and their friends. It was a blast! The best part was that my friend's mom always went to bed early.
So, I've been thinking and I do have more traditions than I thought...one of my favs is this: Sunday Dinner. We always have a Sunday Dinner with our family. It might be at my house, or (my kids favorite) at Grandmas, but it's just what we do. It's so normal that I didn't really think of it as a tradition, but I guess that's what makes a tradition a tradition. Something you always do.
One we've just started:
I make no bake cookies on Sunday after dinner. Easy, quick and yummy.
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