STOLEN THREAD: Traditions

[Deleted]

Stealing this thread idea from GKU...

What are some traditions you are looking forward to starting/sharing with your little one(s)?

ETA: Or favorites you already have.

[awkwardturtle]

I would like to do a box on Christmas Eve with PJs and a Christmas movie.

I would also like to try to bake regularly with them, make it a tradition every Saturday/ Sunday or something.

I would also like to have a tradition of reading with them before bed every night.

[nexttonormal]

We go to the library to take out books every week or two, so I assume we will continue that when #3 arrives.

MH makes pancakes and bacon every Saturday with my girls. They love putting different color sprinkles on the pancakes.

We try to get pictures taken with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, but some years have been a little difficult to say the least.

I'd like to get more crafty with my kids, but my goodness, anything I attempt to make looks like I had my eyes closed and hands behind my back.

[Deleted]

Jul 28, 2015 9:34:23 GMT -5 awkwardturtle said:

I would like to do a box on Christmas Eve with PJs and a Christmas movie.

I would also like to try to bake regularly with them, make it a tradition every Saturday/ Sunday or something.

I would also like to have a tradition of reading with them before bed every night.

We always did "Christmas Eve Presents" growing up - where we'd get to pick one present from under the tree and open it the night before... I always loved that one... I also love the movie/pjs tradition, too...

Someone on GKU said something about Saturday Morning Baking - I love that idea...

Overall, we didn't have a ton of traditions growing up, so now I want to have all the traditions!

[LadyNymeria]

My parents always hid our Easter baskets for us so I'll probably do that for our children. Although it got pretty old when my mom was still hiding my basket after I had moved out of the house!! She still does baskets for all of us but has finally stopped hiding them.

We did Saturday night pizza and a movie growing up. MH and I do Friday night pizza and sometimes a movie now so I see no reason to not continue that once there's kids.

I'm sure there are other "traditions" that just felt normal to me so I'm having a hard time thinking of them now.

[awkwardturtle]

Jul 28, 2015 9:47:30 GMT -5 @pugsandwine said:

Jul 28, 2015 9:34:23 GMT -5 awkwardturtle said:

I would like to do a box on Christmas Eve with PJs and a Christmas movie.

I would also like to try to bake regularly with them, make it a tradition every Saturday/ Sunday or something.

I would also like to have a tradition of reading with them before bed every night.

We always did "Christmas Eve Presents" growing up - where we'd get to pick one present from under the tree and open it the night before... I always loved that one... I also love the movie/pjs tradition, too...

Someone on GKU said something about Saturday Morning Baking - I love that idea...

Overall, we didn't have a ton of traditions growing up, so now I want to have all the traditions!

Did you always pick the present you thought you knew? Or did you just pick a random one?  

[Deleted]

Jul 28, 2015 9:52:11 GMT -5 LadyNymeria said:

My parents always hid our Easter baskets for us so I'll probably do that for our children. Although it got pretty old when my mom was still hiding my basket after I had moved out of the house!! She still does baskets for all of us but has finally stopped hiding them.

We did Saturday night pizza and a movie growing up. MH and I do Friday night pizza and sometimes a movie now so I see no reason to not continue that once there's kids.

I'm sure there are other "traditions" that just felt normal to me so I'm having a hard time thinking of them now.

It's a silly, small one... But I have every intention of implementing Taco Tuesdays! DH and I do it often now anyway... And who doesn't love making tacos?!

[jewel441]

Jul 28, 2015 9:56:12 GMT -5 @pugsandwine said:

Jul 28, 2015 9:52:11 GMT -5 LadyNymeria said:

My parents always hid our Easter baskets for us so I'll probably do that for our children. Although it got pretty old when my mom was still hiding my basket after I had moved out of the house!! She still does baskets for all of us but has finally stopped hiding them.

We did Saturday night pizza and a movie growing up. MH and I do Friday night pizza and sometimes a movie now so I see no reason to not continue that once there's kids.

I'm sure there are other "traditions" that just felt normal to me so I'm having a hard time thinking of them now.

It's a silly, small one... But I have every intention of implementing Taco Tuesdays! DH and I do it often now anyway... And who doesn't love making tacos?!

All I can think of with Taco Tuesday now is the Lego movie. Taco Tuesday is now Freedom Friday, but still on  a Tuesday

[Deleted]

Jul 28, 2015 9:55:50 GMT -5 awkwardturtle said:

Jul 28, 2015 9:47:30 GMT -5 @pugsandwine said:

We always did "Christmas Eve Presents" growing up - where we'd get to pick one present from under the tree and open it the night before... I always loved that one... I also love the movie/pjs tradition, too...

Someone on GKU said something about Saturday Morning Baking - I love that idea...

Overall, we didn't have a ton of traditions growing up, so now I want to have all the traditions!

Did you always pick the present you thought you knew? Or did you just pick a random one?  

ALWAYS. And it got to the point of them disguising and wrapping things very cleverly. I'll never forget my senior year I wanted my class ring SO BAD and just knew I'd get it for Christmas. On Christmas Eve I chose the small jewelry box looking one and ripped it open, it was just a plain trinket box.

I found the class ring the next day hidden in a box of talcom powder. LOL

Then there was the time we wanted the Playstation so bad... It was disguised as a "Drill" for my stepfather. Didn't even have our name on it!!

[awkwardturtle]

Jul 28, 2015 9:59:14 GMT -5 @pugsandwine said:

Jul 28, 2015 9:55:50 GMT -5 awkwardturtle said:

Did you always pick the present you thought you knew? Or did you just pick a random one?  

ALWAYS. And it got to the point of them disguising and wrapping things very cleverly. I'll never forget my senior year I wanted my class ring SO BAD and just knew I'd get it for Christmas. On Christmas Eve I chose the small jewelry box looking one and ripped it open, it was just a plain trinket box.

I found the class ring the next day hidden in a box of talcom powder. LOL

Then there was the time we wanted the XBox so bad... It was disguised as a "Drill" for my stepfather. Didn't even have our name on it!!

Hahaha that's so funny. 

[peachesncream]

We are still working on our holiday traditions.

We do try to do Disney Saturdays though :-)

[jewel441]

I will do the family holiday traditions. I hope that we host some of them one day too when my aunt "retires" I guess depending on where we eventually live...

The only everyday thing I can think of is my dad always used to say to us "See you in the morn" instead of goodnight or see you in the morning, I think I will maybe say this too, I always liked it.

[halfahippy]

This year for Easter we hid Easter eggs with clues to the hidden gifts for all the cousins. There are currently 3 cousins so each kid got a different colored egg. We decided it'll be a tradition every year. Each kid got like 3 or 4 little gifts from the Easter bunny. My brother actually made every clue a little rhyme and it was so cute.
I also want to do a family movie night maybe once or twice a month when the kids are old enough.

[LadyNymeria]

Jul 28, 2015 11:38:09 GMT -5 halfahippy said:

This year for Easter we hid Easter eggs with clues to the hidden gifts for all the cousins. There are currently 3 cousins so each kid got a different colored egg. We decided it'll be a tradition every year. Each kid got like 3 or 4 little gifts from the Easter bunny. My brother actually made every clue a little rhyme and it was so cute.
I also want to do a family movie night maybe once or twice a month when the kids are old enough.

My mom did nighttime Easter Egg hunts for us when we got older even through our younger teen years. She numbered eggs 1-12 or so and each person was supposed to find one of each number using a flashlight. It was a lot of fun because we still got candy.

I imagine my mom will be on top of stuff like that for my future kids and any nieces or nephews. She's always talking about how she can't wait to start doing stuff like that again.

[katespade]

It'll be harder for us to do things that involve our families since they all are in Massachusetts and we arent. But I imagine we will figure out some things of our own.

[michelleca]

I have a few for holidays. For Christmas, although our families both live away, K will always be at home for Christmas. We will have a small party (family and close friends), and will do the jammie / movie / snack present, or at least the pjs and watch a favourite movie. My parents will probably always be over for x-mas eve / morning. I wrap stocking stuffers, and they get opened first.

For Easter, I make a scavenger hunt. I've been doing it for my nieces. DS wasn't old enough to do a hunt with clues, but we did "hide" treats in eggs and went to pick them up with his basket.

I like to travel, and while this might not be a tradition, I go overboard with the vacation - themed clothing and pjs. (Ex. we have taken him cruises, and buy all the nautical themed stuff I can find).

[daystardreams]

The only tradition we had is my dad would cook for us on Saturday morning while my mom slept in and he'd tell us the same story about a dog that told a monkey there was a raccoon in the tree but when the monkey got up there it was an opossum. We'd laugh and laugh, then he'd sing us old country songs.

My husband plans to do something along those lines with our children.

Holiday wise, we really only celebrate Christmas with extended family. We just have dinner and we always read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

[Deleted]

Jul 28, 2015 12:45:11 GMT -5 michelleca said:

I have a few for holidays. For Christmas, although our families both live away, K will always be at home for Christmas. We will have a small party (family and close friends), and will do the jammie / movie / snack present, or at least the pjs and watch a favourite movie. My parents will probably always be over for x-mas eve / morning. I wrap stocking stuffers, and they get opened first.

For Easter, I make a scavenger hunt. I've been doing it for my nieces. DS wasn't old enough to do a hunt with clues, but we did "hide" treats in eggs and went to pick them up with his basket.

I like to travel, and while this might not be a tradition, I go overboard with the vacation - themed clothing and pjs. (Ex. we have taken him cruises, and buy all the nautical themed stuff I can find).

This is disgustingly adorable.

[LadyNymeria]

Jul 28, 2015 13:44:52 GMT -5 @pugsandwine said:

Jul 28, 2015 12:45:11 GMT -5 michelleca said:

I have a few for holidays. For Christmas, although our families both live away, K will always be at home for Christmas. We will have a small party (family and close friends), and will do the jammie / movie / snack present, or at least the pjs and watch a favourite movie. My parents will probably always be over for x-mas eve / morning. I wrap stocking stuffers, and they get opened first.

For Easter, I make a scavenger hunt. I've been doing it for my nieces. DS wasn't old enough to do a hunt with clues, but we did "hide" treats in eggs and went to pick them up with his basket.

I like to travel, and while this might not be a tradition, I go overboard with the vacation - themed clothing and pjs. (Ex. we have taken him cruises, and buy all the nautical themed stuff I can find).

This is disgustingly adorable.

Whenever we did long drives for trips my mom would buy my brothers and I a bunch of little presents (snacks, activity books, car games, etc.) and would wrap them up and number them. Every so often on the trip she would tell us to find a # present in our bag and we got to open it. It made long (we're talking MA->WI, MA->FL long) car rides fun.

She teaches at a university so she's already planning big summer vacations with the grandkids. I'm just hoping for a lot of free summer-time babysitting!

[halfahippy]

Jul 28, 2015 13:50:50 GMT -5 LadyNymeria said:

Jul 28, 2015 13:44:52 GMT -5 @pugsandwine said:

This is disgustingly adorable.

Whenever we did long drives for trips my mom would buy my brothers and I a bunch of little presents (snacks, activity books, car games, etc.) and would wrap them up and number them. Every so often on the trip she would tell us to find a # present in our bag and we got to open it. It made long (we're talking MA->WI, MA->FL long) car rides fun.

She teaches at a university so she's already planning big summer vacations with the grandkids. I'm just hoping for a lot of free summer-time babysitting!

My mom used to do something similar on cross-country trips with little gifts. She would draw a clock with a time we could open the gift on each one. Then we wouldn't bug her for the next one ever.

[LadyNymeria]

Jul 28, 2015 13:58:46 GMT -5 halfahippy said:

Jul 28, 2015 13:50:50 GMT -5 LadyNymeria said:

Whenever we did long drives for trips my mom would buy my brothers and I a bunch of little presents (snacks, activity books, car games, etc.) and would wrap them up and number them. Every so often on the trip she would tell us to find a # present in our bag and we got to open it. It made long (we're talking MA->WI, MA->FL long) car rides fun.

She teaches at a university so she's already planning big summer vacations with the grandkids. I'm just hoping for a lot of free summer-time babysitting!

My mom used to do something similar on cross-country trips with little gifts. She would draw a clock with a time we could open the gift on each one. Then we wouldn't bug her for the next one ever.

That was smart with the clock. If we bugged her she would just add time until she gave it to us. We weren't THAT young so we learned quickly we got presents faster if we were quiet.

[jewel441]

I thought of a weird one. In my family thanksgiving is a gift holiday for children. Where the little ones all get gifts from not their parents, from my parents (great aunts and uncles) and sometimes grandparents and also sometimes other random adults at our thanksgiving (they aren't really random, just not family). It's fun. It's because we are Jewish and don't do Christmas and we don't do a big family thing for Chanukkah, but it's really fun.

Also for Passover, my kids will be learning the 4 questions. All of them (all of the kids, all of the questions). Despite that I was only ever the youngest for 2 years of my life I did these things for like 20 years and still have to sometimes depending on which cousins (and their kids) come to Passover.

[almachs0786]

Jul 28, 2015 9:34:23 GMT -5 awkwardturtle said:

I would like to do a box on Christmas Eve with PJs and a Christmas movie.
SNIP

We started doing this with DD last Christmas. We also wrap 25 Christmas/winter themed books and let her open one every night to read. Last year I ordered 6 old-school Christmas little golden books and it was so fun to read those to her since that's what we read when I was a kid.

[almachs0786]

Aside from what I mentioned above, my family watched nothing but "A Christmas Story" all Christmas Day. The channel is not to be changed, or else!
On New Year's Day we eat pork roast and sour kraut with mashed potatoes.

We moved across the country and away from our families this year, so I'm hoping that I can keep going with all the little things that kept the holidays fun for us.

[awkwardturtle]

Jul 28, 2015 18:26:29 GMT -5 almachs0786 said:

Jul 28, 2015 9:34:23 GMT -5 awkwardturtle said:

I would like to do a box on Christmas Eve with PJs and a Christmas movie.
SNIP

We started doing this with DD last Christmas. We also wrap 25 Christmas/winter themed books and let her open one every night to read. Last year I ordered 6 old-school Christmas little golden books and it was so fun to read those to her since that's what we read when I was a kid.

I love that so much I'm going to steal that idea. 

[adorebel]

Ok, I love these traditions so much!

We have so many, and a lot we want to start with our LOs too! I think tradition is so important to how you feel time passing and life changing as a family.

In the fall, MH and I have started roasting a bunch of pumpkins and seeds on a weekend and freezing the pumpkin flesh for pies, pancakes, smoothies, muffins, etc all season. It makes the house smell so good! Obviously we have another day for carving pumpkins, etc...

For Christmas, the traditions from my family include church and a seafood dinner on Christmas Eve (I love the idea of reintroducing the pjs/books with kids around again!). We also have a special Christmas morning breakfast egg dish after opening stockings as well. We always eat a very old-school English Christmas dinner with the whole extended family, including roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and figgy pudding for dessert. We have a similarly traditional Easter dinner that I love to make, too.

MH didn't have a lot of family around or a lot of traditions growing up, but he always made a Christmas ornament with his mom for the tree every year and set up a little lighted Christmas village with his mom, so I want to keep those traditions to honor my MIL, too.

Since a lot of my mother's family is Scandinavian, I've reintroduced my great-grandmother's tradition (whom I never met) of making saffron buns on St. Lucia day in early December. They look like this:

[almachs0786]

Jul 29, 2015 0:52:55 GMT -5 TheCoffeeNinja said:

Jul 28, 2015 18:26:29 GMT -5 almachs0786 said:

We started doing this with DD last Christmas. We also wrap 25 Christmas/winter themed books and let her open one every night to read. Last year I ordered 6 old-school Christmas little golden books and it was so fun to read those to her since that's what we read when I was a kid.

I would love to do this but we have a load of books already and they only ever want to read the same 6 over and over

We definitely are going to recycle a lot of the same books each year (keep the "classics", change others as the kiddos get older). We keep them boxed with our Christmas decorations so that we aren't reading them/getting tired of them all year-round.

Edited cuz wordz are hard.

[jess9802]

DH and I have started a few traditions for SS and DS that we will continue for this baby. We buy each kid a personalized Christmas ornament each year (trying to tie it into a particular interest, hobby, or milestone from the past year), and give it to him on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is at my in-laws' house and Santa comes for a visit; Christmas morning is at our house with my family, and we have a big breakfast served on special Christmas china. I plan to take the kids to Mass - hopefully Christmas Eve mass when they're older, but this past year Christmas Day was much easier. Themed jammies, cookies, and The Night Before Christmas before bed on Christmas Eve.

I make pancakes, bacon, and eggs for dinner on Shrove Tuesday (day before Ash Wednesday), which the family enjoys a lot more than the meatless Fridays during Lent. DH's Easters were like a second Christmas, so he's enjoyed setting up Easter egg hunts and big baskets. We do the typical BBQ/fireworks on 4th of July, pumpkin patch/trick-or-treating at Halloween, and special birthday dinners/treats for each kid.

I would like to do more family movie nights. We do binge watch TV series with SS (we all got into "Breaking Bad" when I was on maternity leave lol), but he is almost 16 and less interested in hanging out with us these days. I look forward to that with DS and this baby.

[ironmom]

*Older LC mentioned*

Our big tradition started out pretty flame worthy. Actually I got nearly harassed off TD for it, but whatever. It's ours.

We took Bird to meet Santa the day he got out of the hospital at 3 days old. He was so teeny, and it was the best picture of Santa holding him. It was the first day Santa was at the mall, so every year we get up super early and wait in line to be the first family to meet him each year. And Santa remembers him every year.

We also have Taco Tuesday. It's not always tacos, but always some type of Latin American food. Bird loves it.

[azurestar]

We would like to do a weekly family board game night. I used to do that with my family as a kid and it was fun.

Every year since we got married we get a special Christmas tree ornament that represents something memorable from that year. First was a wedding one, then a house one when we bought our first house, hopefully a baby one this year...

We used to do Advent Calendars for the whole month of December and got to have a surprise piece of chocolate everyday in the calendar. Maybe I will accompany that with reading a good Christmas book every night like almachs0786 mentioned.

Easter egg hunts for sure! I loved doing that as a kid.

At Thanksgiving, my mom has us all go around the table and say what we are grateful for before we eat our turkey dinner. Kind of cheesy, but I like the gratitude aspect of it.