Fun Family Traditions

[arivecchi]

We have developed a couple of traditions with the kids so far and I :heartbeat: it, so I am wondering if I am missing out on some fun ones. :)

So what are your fun family traditions?

Some of ours are:

- movie nights on Fridays and Saturdays
- pancakes on Sundays (the kids are in charge of mixing :p)
- pumpkin patch trips every fall
- making Halloween and holiday crafts (haunted houase, gingerbread house)
- baking cookies for holidays
- every one snuggling up in the master bed on weekend mornings
- holiday stuff (decorating tree, going sledding, etc.)

Tell me yours!

[ChunkyNicksChunkyMom]

We still really love the special day plate.

[mctlaw]

Great thread Arivecchi, I love hearing others' ideas in the hopes of adding to ours.

My grandmother, who just passed, was a big holiday baker when we were kids and she made *the best* frosted sugar cookies at Christmas. I have been making them with DS since he was 2, though I don't have her exact recipe.

My FIL is Mexican and as part of holidays spent with them, we make tamales. Lots of fun though we have had varying results (for some reason last year's masa was awful and we had to toss the entire batch).

[katerinasmom]

Since my husband and I split up, I've really tried to come up with some things that my girls and I do that they will remember forever. By far the most fun is our annual smashing of the gingerbread houses. Every year just after Thanksgiving we decorate gingerbread houses with my cousins, my sister, our mothers and our collective children. The gingerbread houses remain on our dining room table as part of our holiday decorations through January 6th. The day after that, I give each of my girls a mallet or a large heavy spoon or a play hammer and together we smash the gingerbread houses to bits. I am pretty much a control freak and my house is generally always put together and orderly. And I will fully admit that I tend to overreact sometimes to spills and messes. But this is the one day a year that I put that all aside and just let loose and together we make a total mess. Gingerbread pieces fly everywhere. But oh how much fun we have. Then we all clean it up together. We've done it two years in a row now and I plan to continue until they have children of their own at which point I will simply move the annual smashing to their house.

[mom2binsd]

Since my husband and I split up, I've really tried to come up with some things that my girls and I do that they will remember forever. By far the most fun is our annual smashing of the gingerbread houses. Every year just after Thanksgiving we decorate gingerbread houses with my cousins, my sister, our mothers and our collective children. The gingerbread houses remain on our dining room table as part of our holiday decorations through January 6th. The day after that, I give each of my girls a mallet or a large heavy spoon or a play hammer and together we smash the gingerbread houses to bits. I am pretty much a control freak and my house is generally always put together and orderly. And I will fully admit that I tend to overreact sometimes to spills and messes. But this is the one day a year that I put that all aside and just let loose and together we make a total mess. Gingerbread pieces fly everywhere. But oh how much fun we have. Then we all clean it up together. We've done it two years in a row now and I plan to continue until they have children of their own at which point I will simply move the annual smashing to their house.

I love that idea....I too can be too worried about the messes around the house and my kids would get such a kick out of that....the other day when I drove over their wet chalk on the driveway DD seemed so shocked when I exclaimed "oh what a cool design on my tires on the driveway",,,she said she was expecting me to be mad....made me realize I have to mellow out.

We did our second annual trip to a pumpkin patch in Amish country, we went to a country Amish buffet afterwards and then to the outlet mall to get winter jammies at the Carters store....DD loved that we did the exact same thing as last year.

[Giantbear]

Since my wife an di started dating, we go in to see the tree in NYC every year. Last year we took our 7 month old dd to see the tree. The funny part about this tradition is that we are Jewish :)

[niccig]

Family Game Night

DS likes to watch the TV show, so we've started one weekend night we make pizza and play boardgames, card games. He's old enough at 6 to play and not get upset if he doesn't win.

[vdrake71]

Here are some other ideas:
- the kids are allowed to sleep on our floor one day of the weekend. Sometimes, my DH even pulls out the couch bed and he sleeps with them downstairs.
- special date night for their b-day. We make it a special day where we (DH and me) take them out where ever they would like to go.

[arivecchi]

Thanks for the fun ideas!

[larig]

We have a few.

We color eggs with a friend of mine from grad school and his family--this year I even bought a tool to blow the egg out of the shell, so you can keep them.

We use an advent calendar that my mom made for me that is an exact copy of the one I used as a child. It is burlap with pockets that contain little felt decorations for a felt tree that has buttons from which you hang the little ornaments. I also added little pictures of holiday activities for most days (idea from BBB), I used pictures cut out of card stock to add to the pockets, since DS can't read yet. So, when DS puts the ornament on the tree for the day he sees what we're doing.

We walk in the neighborhood fourth of july kids' parade. (this is a big deal!)

We like to go to ikea for breakfast and beat the crowd.

We go to our neighborhood concerts in the park in the summer.

[mommylamb]

We haven't purposely created a lot of traditions, but there are things we've done for the last several years and will probably continue to do, so I guess they're defacto traditions.

For the last 3 years we've gone to the open house at our local fire station in the fall.
We do both Hanukkah and Christmas things (lighting menorah, getting a tree, etc).
We do our Christmas stockings the night before Christmas with my parents (it's Christmas with the Jews at my house!)
DS usually has a class at the rec center on Saturdays with his best friend, and we meet up with her and her parents at the local coffee shop for breakfast every Saturday morning and then go to the class.

We plan on doing a summer vacation to the Outer Banks in NC every year. Of DS's 5 summers of life, we've only actually gone 2x- though once we did Delaware instead- but I want to do OBX every year.

[arivecchi]

We plan on doing a summer vacation to the Outer Banks in NC every year. Of DS's 5 summers of life, we've only actually gone 2x- though once we did Delaware instead- but I want to do OBX every year. A vacay tradition! What a great idea!

Can I come? ;)

[lkarp]

Some of our favorite annual traditions:

- picking our own pumpkins from a real pumpkin patch
- making candied orange peels every christmas
- playmobil Advent calendar and Advent ornament tree
- crepes on Christmas morning
- visiting my parents in Michigan during the 4th of July for the balloon festival and air show. the kids love seeing the balloons float above my parents house!
- having "spa day". DH washes the girls' hair in the kitchen sink (they lie on the counter) and then he trims their hair on top of the kitchen table while they watch a movie on the "big screen". I paint their toenails while they watch as well.
- we camp in our backyard at least once every spring and fall. We build a fire in our grill, roast hot dogs, have s'mores, and sleep in our tent in the backyard. The girls LOVE this.

[ashleybama24]

We are allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve and it's always pjs! We then wear our pjs to bed and lounge around in them on Christmas morning while we make breakfast and open gifts.

When I was little we use to volunteer at a food shelter on Thanksgiving serving the homeless before we had our dinner. We plan to start volunteering when are children are old enough so we can teach them the value of helping those less fortunate than ourselves.

We also do breakfast on Sundays and watch CBS Sunday morning together.

We also do a yearly family vacation with my family. We have been going to Michigan every summer since I was born and my mom went every summer since she was a child. We also have done other trips like Antarctica or Colorado where we rent a house.

[California]

Loving this thread, gives me the warm fuzzies before the holidays!

We have tons of traditions. Almost too many! Two of my favorites:

We've gone to a beach cottage every summer since my son was born, even though we live ten minutes from the beach. Its wonderful to be right next to the waves.

Tossing the Christmas tree! Our former house (just moved) was on a slope so the living room was on the 2nd story with a garage/backyard below. We started a tradition of "ending the holidays" by annually throwing the Christmas tree off the deck. Spend a day de-decorating, talk about the holidays, invite Grandma & close friends/neighbors over. Final toast to "our tree," dramatic countdown, kids below screaming "throw it, throw it!" and DH and a friend swing it up and over as high as they can. I know... totally silly. But our kids love this. It definitely gives us a special end to the holiday season, too. My mom has promised to continue the tradition this year at her house.

[Dcclerk]

We love traditions and annual events, so we have a rather large assortment:

Halloween: go to pumpkin patch. The weekend before Halloween is for a big neighborhood pumpkin carving extravaganza.

Fall: annual trip (or two) apple picking, pressing cider, etc. The place is 2 hours away but gorgeous, and I highlight for my kiddos. We were a little early this year, so got to pick raspberries, too.

Thanksgiving: gathering fall-looking leaves for the Thanksgiving decor; name __ things we are thankful for

Christmas: go to Bethlehem recreation at local church; visit Christmas Tree lane neighborhood carting cider or hot chocolate, whether rain or shine, in pajamas; Christmas party for local fireworks; decorate sugar cookies; advent calendar count-down with activities each day; decorate Christmas tree and house the day after Thanksgiving; Christmas caroling; seeing Disneyland decorations; Christmas tea

Between Christmas and New Year's: trip to Mammoth

Easter: neighborhood egg decorating; attend Hollywood Bowl with picnic

Memorial Day: "camping" trip with about 15 families at winery

Summer: trip to the mountains

I love hearing about everyone else's!

[Gena]

Here are some of ours:

- Going the pumpkin patch and on a hayride in the fall.
- Going to the local train show every year.
- A late summer day at the amusement park.
- On Holy Saturday we take our baskets of Easter food to church to be blessed.
- Visiting the Henry Ford Museum and seeing all our favorite exhibits.
- Watching the 4th of July fireworks at the Fire Station.

[LexyLou]

We do a lot of the things mentioned

-annual apple picking

-annual pumpkin patch trip (going on Sunday)

-Christmas Patch (same place as pumpkin patch has snow and ice skating and horseback riding, etc)

-Christmas Light hunting (driving around the neighborhoods with the best lights)

-Making gingerbread houses

-Big Hanukkah party at our house (60+ people) (We're an interfaith family)

-Big New Years Eve Party at our house (East Coast Style-we count down at 9pm)

-Date days. Each girl gets a "date" with just mom or dad and then we switch

-When my DH is out of town the girls sleep in my room on their mattresses

-Special birthday plate on everyone's birthday


I know there are more. It's funny, we do some things and I don't consider them traditions but my girls ask for them every year so it's obviously something they remember and want more of.

[ahisma]

- Ice cream parlor on the first day we can wear shorts
- Go out to dinner the first day of school
- Visit the botanical gardens to look at Christmas trees front around the world every winter
- Lots of harvest traditions - strawberry picking, corn & asparagus from the farm stand by the cottage, blueberry picking, etc.
- DH always makes the birthday cakes.
- Pumpkins from the farm with dozens of "Oliver" tractors (DS2 is Oliver)
- Cutting down a Christmas tree
- Christmas tree lighting ceremony in our "town center"

[mjmamma]

In addition to some listed above....

Birthday Dinner - The birthday person gets to pick whatever they want for their birthday dinner. It can be something homemade, Kraft Mac N Cheese, a trip to the Mexican restaurant....McDonalds was chosen once this year.

Jack O'Lantern - The kids get to pick the design for our pumpkin(s), that I pretty much carve with help gutting. Last year was Spongebob and Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas. This year Super Mario was the winner. It's a fun way to give them a chance to vote, come to an agreement and have a choice.

[mjmamma]

- Ice cream parlor on the first day we can wear shorts
- Go out to dinner the first day of school
- Visit the botanical gardens to look at Christmas trees front around the world every winter
- Lots of harvest traditions - strawberry picking, corn & asparagus from the farm stand by the cottage, blueberry picking, etc.
- DH always makes the birthday cakes.
- Pumpkins from the farm with dozens of "Oliver" tractors (DS2 is Oliver)
- Cutting down a Christmas tree
- Christmas tree lighting ceremony in our "town center"

I may adopt your first two traditions..fun!