Starting a Family Tradition
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.
The only tradition we had as a family was opening one gift on Christmas Eve. It was always something small but lots of fun. Usually a toy we could sleep with that night. It was one thing my brother and I always looked forward to.
I like the idea of a tablecloth though.
You know what else sounds like fun that I would love to do if I could sew? Taking a small square out of one item of clothes of each person (for the kids maybe something outgrown that they can pick to “donate” for the quilt, for the adults maybe a shirt that is mostly worn out) to make a quilt out of it when there are enough squares.
Our family puts together a holiday-themed jigsaw puzzle on Thanksgiving. (A new one each year, something like 500-1000 pieces, depending on how many of us there will be and how ambitious we are!) Not great for babes, but even my older toddlers have liked sitting on a grown-up’s lap to “help.”