Traditional Traditions

What is a tradition? Is it serving a certain dinner at Christmas, taking an annual summer vacation together, or having a weekly family game night? I suspect that a family tradition is all of these things. Looking at an official definition, a tradition is a custom, belief or activity taught by one generation to the next. Each one of us has our own traditions that we have established and probably our own definition of a tradition.

We are almost one quarter a way through 2010 and typically my family reflects upon our goals and outlook for the coming year right around New Year’s. We are not late this year in doing so and have a running list of household and family goals for 2010 that range anywhere from repaving the driveway to going on a family vacation this summer. However, it was more recently that I began reflecting on family traditions when prompted to do so while reading the book, Bright From The Start: The Simple, Science-Backed Way to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind from Birth to Age3” by Jill Stamm, PH.D, which included a section on establishing and maintaining family traditions.

Growing up, I shared family traditions with my parents that included going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in New Jersey for a big Thanksgiving dinner where all my Aunts, Uncles and cousins would gather. Another family tradition included an annual weeklong summer family vacation to Ocean City, MD. This annual vacation included several activities that I highly anticipated each year such as a visit to the water slide park, a walk on the boardwalk accompanied by my favorite junk food, at least one trip to Jolly Rodgers, the amusement park, and dinner at Fager’s Island to watch the sunset. Other less formal traditions were a trip to Wendy’s after soccer practice with my teammates, dinner together at the kitchen table when we were home to eat, and annual Easter egg hunts in my parents’ house.

Reflecting on my own family traditions from when I was a kid made me begin to think about the traditions I have established with my kids or would like to establish as they grow older. It occurred to me that my husband and I unknowingly had already begun to establish our own family traditions that have carried on even before our sons were born. We have been visiting NYC at Christmas time during the first week in December for the past 6 years. We host my parents for Christmas Eve dinner annually. We have a full cooked breakfast on Christmas morning prior to opening any gifts (as the kids get older I recognize this tradition will be impossible to keep). We visit our alma mater, William and Mary annually for Homecoming weekend. We have a pizza night every Thursday where we get take out and watch television together. We are not regular coffee drinkers, but thanks to the birth of our first son we were introduced to Dunkin Donuts Iced Coffee and have managed to crave it occasionally. As a result, Friday mornings have become Donut and Coffee mornings. There are probably a handful of other things we do regularly that I would now classify as a family tradition.

Now that my husband and I have a head start on instituting family traditions, we have identified other holidays and things that we would like to introduce over time as family traditions. I want us to have a list of traditions that include what I like to call “everyday” traditions and also special occasion traditions. Some traditions under consideration include our own annual summer beach vacation, a new brunch meal every Sunday at home, family participation in a race on Thanksgiving day, volunteering together at the holidays, take a family picture at each of my kids birthdays that I can save and put in an album, write a letter to each of my kids each birthday, have a weekly family activity night where we pick from a bag of random ideas, go out for dessert one night per week during the summer months, have a movie night as a family where we simulate being at the movies to include our favorite goodies, keep a family journal together, and do a craft with the boys to give to dad each Father’s Day.

Some of my long list of traditions may stick, some may not but the important thing to us is that we implement traditions that our kids enjoy and will one day share with their own families. The idea is to pass along the traditions between generations and have you kids and grandkids add to the list. My family plans to review our list of traditions annually as part of our regular New Year’s outlook to determine what traditions are working for the family, which traditions we like or don’t like and which we should consider adding to the running list. Our annual review of the family tradition list will become its own tradition to pass down to future generations.