How to Create Meaningful Traditions for Your Family

Family traditions create special memories all year round. Here’s how to create meaningful family traditions that your family will treasure for years to come.

Moms Crushing It with CanCan Quick Steps

The holiday season is probably the most popular time for practicing family traditions. But the rituals we share with our families are important to observe year-round, not just during the holidays.

Here are six ideas to get you started in establishing traditions and rituals in your home:

1. Evaluate What You’re Already Doing
2. Creating Daily Rituals
3. The tradition of the Red Plate
4. Birthday Traditions
5. Food Traditions
6. Establish a Family Motto

Your Traditions

Traditions are the glue that keeps a family together. We all have busy lives, and adding a small tradition here or there can make all the difference in maintaining and strengthening your family bonds.

Traditions can be as simple as reading to your child every night, having a movie and popcorn night every Friday, or discussing things you are grateful for around the dinner table each evening.

Don’t be discouraged, however, if you don’t have many traditions in place just yet. The beauty is that you can start them any time, any place, and your newfound traditions will still have a positive impact on your entire family regardless of how old they are.

Tip 1: Evaluate What You’re Already Doing

Successful family rituals and traditions should be fun, frequent, flexible, and simple. Make a list of these things you already do on a regular basis and fine-tune the ones that can become regular traditions.

As a family, ask how important these things are to you.

For example, in our family, my ex-husband always picks the birthday child up from school early, takes him or her out to lunch, and then for an afternoon of doing whatever activity the child chooses—just the two of them.

My now 17-year-old daughter still remembers when she was seven, and she celebrated by leaving school early to go roller skating and then shopping for accessories and furniture for her doll house. Her dad was a good sport and catered to her every whim and ended up enjoying the visit to the doll store because he saw how excited she was.

Tip 2: Creating Daily Rituals

Sharing dinner together as a family on a regular basis is becoming more difficult for many households.

If dinner isn’t possible, how about breakfast? A bowl of cereal and hot chocolate is a great way to start your day off on a positive note and connect with one another before all going your separate ways.

If you have a pet, you can create a ritual around their care as well. For instance, every day, one of our kids takes our two dogs for a walk in the neighborhood before dinner. The two dogs look forward to this ritual every day. Also, it’s a great way for both pets and kids to get some exercise.

At bedtime, your family rituals could involve talking about the day, storytelling, reading, and/or prayers.

Suppose children are staying up late—watching television, exchanging instant messages, playing video games, or doing homework—or young children fall asleep somewhere in the house. In that case, it’s difficult to establish rituals.

If this sounds like your family, take steps to slowly re-establish calm bedtime routines.

Tip 3: The Tradition of the Red Plate

Some of you may have heard of the Red Plate Tradition and even have it integrated into your family.  This is something I’ve been doing for the past ten years now.

The idea is that the red plate gets to be used by a member of your family on their special day. Many gift stores carry an “official” red plate (check out www.redplatestore.com), or you can use any red plate that you have on hand.

Tip 4: Birthday Traditions

Birthdays are a great way to establish new traditions. Besides the tradition of my husband taking each of our kids out for a special outing on their birthdays, I also take out the birthday child’s baby and early childhood scrapbooks and photos and display them all throughout the house for a few days around their birthday.

Each birthday child also gets to open one gift before they head off to school and the rest of their gifts after their birthday dinner.

A friend of mine who is from Germany has a birthday tradition every year for her kids called “The Breakfast Table,” in which they have cake and ice cream for breakfast. In addition, whimsical and fun gifts await the birthday child after school. And when her kids were young, she would send in small toys, such as jacks or matchbox cars, for each of her child’s school friends so they could help celebrate the special occasion as well.

Tip 5: Food Traditions

If you enjoy cooking, food is a wonderful way to establish tasty traditions that involve the whole family. Collect recipes from grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and neighbors. Write them down.

We have a recipe for New England clam chowder and homemade clam cakes that have been in our family for over 50 years.

Every 4th of July, we go clamming and then make enough chowder to eat that day with more to give to family and friends. There is also enough to freeze some for the winter.

Strawberry picking or going to an apple orchard every fall is also another way to incorporate a seasonal tradition which can result in homemade strawberry jam or delicious apple pies.

Making homemade cookies and candy to give to teachers or neighbors is another fun tradition that many families do each year.

Something as simple as enjoying pancakes each Sunday morning is another easy way to bring your family closer together using food.

Tip 6: Establish a Family Motto

My ex-husband coined our family motto almost 20 years ago—Every day is good, some are better!

Celebrate Your Family

You get to choose how to mark all the occasions in your family. Create happy memories. Add more joy to your lives by celebrating the little daily things along with the big milestones, and you, too, will create meaningful traditions for your family.

What are some of your favorite family traditions and rituals? Let me know in the Comment section below.