Family Traditions?
This has probably been asked on here before, but what are your favorite family traditions? In my little family of three, we don't really have any traditions yet, and with Luna having just turned one, we are throwing her first birthday party tomorrow. I took a cue from many an AFV episode and decided to get her a separate cake to swim in for the photos we can show to her first boyfriend when she's 173 cause I'm not letting her date any sooner than that! ANYWAY, what are some traditions that y'all had either when you were kids, or when you were raising kids, or if you're past that stage, what are some traditions you enjoy with extended family. I do remember Christmases at my Granny and Poppy's (Carolyn and David Snow) and at my paternal grandmother's houses. I also remember Thanksgivings and some Easters and Birthdays...
posted by Unknown at
7:09:00 PM
8 Comments:
Ashley: I always did that first birthday cake that way, probably because a friend of mine did that. Her son and Richard turned one at about the same time, so she made them both one, and thereafter I did it. I may have done that for some grandchildren, if they were close, but obviously you wouldn't remember yours.
I would like to hear from you HOW and WHAT you remember about traditions.
I will try to write about some more later.
Well, like on Christmas at your house every year we took turns one by one, youngest to oldest, opening our gifts, and for that brief several minutes, we were the center of attention. Contrastingly, at Grandma Jeannie's house we each took turns in random order opening one gift at a time while someone played Santa and passed out the gifts. Then afterwards we would grab our stockings and dump them all over the floor while we tallied our loot. I enjoyed Christmas at both houses, but I always thought the traditions at your house made us a little less likely to count the number of gifts. At Grandma Jeannie's, there were often times where as the cycle progressed less and less people would be opening gifts, so you could tell who had been given the most. As children, we didn't necessarily know how much each gift cost, so even if someone opened three gifts that were each worth $50 and someone else opened fifty gifts that were each worth $3, we still thought the person with fifty gifts was getting more. But when we were at your house and we had it all in front of us at once, and we had the spotlight and bragging rights when it was our time to open gifts we all got to feel special, even if we had less to open. At least that's the way I saw it...
That was insightful. The child's perspective is often lost, and is often hard to ascertain, especially in the chaos of Christmas gift opening. The tradition of youngest to oldest came from Poppy's grandparents. I don't even remember how we did it at home when I was small, and by the time my parents died, Christmas was from one home to the other, where we opened gifts whenever they appeared, as I recall. So Poppy's family tradition has stuck, and been a good one. I have noticed on occasion that people who were at our house at Christmas (not grandchildren) often had trouble enduring the long gift opening.
I did always feel bad that by the time it got around to the adults there was less attention paid to y'all and less parcels placed before y'all. Something about y'all being blessed to have the lot of us and not needing material goods or some such thing, lol...
Christmas is for kids.
One thing that I have always done with my kids on Christmas eve is first we would go to wal mart and get an ornament and engrave their names and date on them, then that evening we would listen to christmas music while making cookies and drinking eggnog. I would always let them help with the baking the decorating was up to them. Afterwords we would go to a local park that has a wonderful light display and they would play and then we would finish the evening at home putting all their previous years ornaments on the tree. Since they have gotten older I don't buy them as many presents and try to focus more on family and the spirit of the season. They look forward to it every year and my son is going to be 20 soon. He hasn't missed a christmas yet.
Teri
That's awesome!
Would Dad's turkey outside thing qualify? lol
Post a Comment
<< Home