With Thanks­giv­ing com­ing up and hav­ing two chil­dren, I have started think­ing again about tra­di­tions for our fam­ily. When I was younger, my fam­ily wasn’t huge on tra­di­tion other than get­ting together. THAT was our tra­di­tion. Spend­ing time with fam­ily was the most impor­tant thing. That is still impor­tant to me. I still want our extended fam­i­lies to be a big part of our kids’ lives and our lives, too, of course. I also want some­thing of our own though. What do other peo­ple do for fam­ily tra­di­tions? How do you start one? Do you just ask around and try some­thing that sounds good? Do you just hap­pen upon it and keep doing it once you decide you liked it?

A cou­ple things I’ve heard of doing are to put the Christ­mas tree up on Thanks­giv­ing as a fam­ily. Get a table cloth and use it every year at Thanks­giv­ing (or Christ­mas or another hol­i­day) and write one thing that you are thank­ful for on it. A friend of mine told me that she had 24 Christ­mas books. She wrapped them up, and start­ing Decem­ber 1st, she read one of them each night with her kids while they all had hot choco­late. I think that’s a great idea, by the way. I just don’t have 24 Christ­mas books yet.

Are there any other great ideas float­ing around out there? Now that this is becom­ing more impor­tant to me, I’m actu­ally feel­ing pres­sure to make my tra­di­tions great. I know that mak­ing them tra­di­tions is really what makes them great, but I just really want them to be meaningful.