How to Create the Traditions Your Kids Crave

When we think about traditions, we probably think about elaborate and long-standing rituals. The yearly trek with the family to find the perfect Christmas tree. Homemade ice cream cakes for everyone’s birthdays. Summer vacations spent at the lake.

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We all grow up with traditions that make us feel cozy and warm when we think about them. Looking back at the ones I had as a child, I can remember our summers spent touring the continental US in the family truck. I remember fondly the Saturdays at my grandparents’ house, surrounded by my cousins. I think of the Charlie Brown Christmas trees that were always chosen as “the one,” each and every year.

Traditions have a way of tying our pasts and our presents together, while simultaneously glossing over the less than ideal parts that come with them. The arguments, the inconveniences, the complications. Like childbirth, we remember the amazement of seeing our newborns for the first time, but the pain that brought that baby into the world is muted.

Traditions are important to children. In a world that is constantly shifting, where jobs can pull us away from the people and places we know, where marriages end and friends move on, traditions form a stable foundation in our children’s lives. They are the things that our kids can expect, anticipate, and rely upon.

If you haven’t created any traditions in your family yet, maybe now is a good time to start. If you’re not sure where to begin, here are a few suggestions:

• Keep it Simple

Sometimes, I have serious envy when I see families that have those elaborate traditions that seem like they’re straight off a movie set. Everyone’s excited to take part, no one forgot anything, there’s no last minute crisis getting in the way. Maybe it’s just my family, but anything too involved loses steam fast for us.

Choose things that are simple, so that regardless of what’s going on in your life year-to-year, you’ll be able to continue. Last year, I made Christmas cookies with the kids like I do every year. But with the baby being fussy and me being sleep-deprived, I ditched the homemade dough and went store-bought. Skipping that one step made the difference between keeping our tradition and losing it.

• Keep it Age-Appropriate (or have a back-up plan)

The age of your children may play a part in choosing what traditions you want to make a part of your home. The younger ones won’t be as interested in the things that excite the older ones, and visa versa. Since you want your traditions to be something that’s looked forward to year after year, you don’t want to choose something that will lose your family’s interest as they grow.

Make a tradition that appeals to you and your older children. Then, devise a more kid-friendly version so that your younger kids can feel like they are taking part, but aren’t bored when things go over their heads. Maybe your family wants to do nightly devotions. Have the younger kids sit at the table with everyone else and give them some coloring pages. This way, they can take part if they want to, and if not, they can listen until they’re ready.

• Keep it Interesting — to your family, not someone else’s

It is very tempting to duplicate the traditions of other families, either because they make it look easy or because you think that it would be perfect in your vision of how your family should be. But what might work in one person’s home may be a flop in another’s. Play to the unique interests of the members of your family.

I love the idea of elaborate Thanksgiving meals, with notecards and tablecloths and everyone saying what they are thankful for. But I cannot get that off the ground here to save my life. So I’ve relegated the idea to the mental box labeled “My Fantasy Family.” The ones who don’t start eating before the prayers are finished, who don’t spill milk on their turkey, and who are thankful for more than just pie. Seriously, the kitchen smells are very distracting.

• Keep it Organic

Allow traditions to unfold for you. You may notice that your kids ask to go to the same place every year for their birthdays. Or that you’re all gathering on the couch for a movie on Saturday nights. Or that Tuesdays have officially been renamed Taco Tuesdays.

Not all of these traditions will thrill you. My kids want to go to Chuck E. Cheese every birthday, every year. But they love it and look forward to it. So I play Skee-ball 4-5 times a year, and the tradition lives on.

Routines, traditions, and schedules all provide stability and comfort for our children, and for us, too. But more than that, they create a legacy that can stay in the hearts and minds of our families for years and generations to come. It will bring us closer together and create special, shared memories.

Think Saturday morning cartoons and pancakes are silly? Ask your kids what they think of them twenty years from now. They might be cutting through a stack on the weekends for their own children by then.

 

What traditions does your family have? Are there any that you hope you can start? Let me know in the comments!

 

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