Family traditions: Moms matter in creating their family legacies.
The most important family traditions resonate with your family's values and help build strong, loving connections.
Halloween is here in the blink of an eye, and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. The importance of family traditions varies from one family to another, as they often depend on our values, culture, and personal preferences. Some of the most cherished family traditions include holidays and birthdays.
Whether it's Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Chanukah, holidays are a time for families to come together and create special memories.
Do you dress up to match your children for Halloween? My daughter and son-in-law tend to gather with friends for a light supper, and then all go out trick-or-treating with their kids. This is becoming their family tradition. One year they all dressed as police officers and outlaws - very creative. My parents never dressed up with us and merely acknowledged the holiday by allowing us to keep (and eat) all that candy.
However, it was very different one month later. At Thanksgiving my mother always got out her best china and crystal and set an elegant table using her antique, embroidered tablecloths. I always wondered why she liked to use these since they never seemed to tolerate the spilled gravy and cranberry relish stains. Nevertheless, I also use my best china dishes and crystal to set my Thanksgiving table. Instead of fancy tablecloths, I use place mats, table runners with matching napkins and fancy napkin rings. I worry more about how the table looks than how the food tastes. (That’s because my husband, son, and son-in-law do most of the cooking.)
Of course, Aunt Geneva’s squash casserole, Aunt Marianne’s sweet potato souffle, and Aunt Gigi’s asparagus casserole will be served. These are some our best-loved Thanksgiving family food traditions. If you have a large family, will there be an adult table and a separate table for children? Will the teenagers always hate to be seated at the children’s table? Do you watch the football games after the meal? Do the adults take naps on the couch? All traditions.
Holidays provide the best opportunities for moms to create family traditions. How you decorate for Christmas or Chanukah creates a lasting image of home and family for your children. The type of Christmas tree you purchase matters. Even the style of ornaments you place on your tree is an important legacy. Do you collect ornaments from all your travels and vacations? I love to remind my children of certain trips when I see a special ornament. Even the Christmas music you listen to while decorating the tree matters and your children will remember!
One of my favorite family traditions was our regular family dinner. I loved them because it brought us all together at the end of our busy days and we could talk about our day and decompress. When my children were young, family dinners in our home allowed children to talk about their school day, any problems they encountered, and any celebrations. Actually, it is the sitting down together and sharing a meal that is important. No TV or videos, and no cell phones.
My daughter began our current tradition of extended “family dinner” every Sunday evening. Her husband and my husband alternate cooking at their respective homes and we invite nearby uncles and cousins to join us. My granddaughter already has the habit of asking everyone at our Sunday evening family meals, “How was your good day?” She goes around the table and lets everyone tell the best thing about their day. Her parents already instilled this lovely pearl of a tradition into her young life.
Consuming food together is nearly sacred in many cultures. Surely you have discovered that your family dinner is a means of connecting and sharing common goals, values, and concerns. It is not just dinner. (Children who participate in family dinners have been shown to make better grades, have larger vocabularies, and higher self-esteem. They have less anxiety, are less likely to use cigarettes and drugs, less likely to get pregnant, and less likely to commit suicide. Let me know if you want to see the research.)
How you celebrate each family member's birthday can foster a sense of belonging and individual importance. At the very least it becomes a family tradition, and mom always adds her flavor to the party – large or small. My daughter goes all out with balloons, decorations, and sometimes costumes. I loved Peter’s two-year-old party where he wore an Elmo t-shirt. I was Oscar the Grouch, Doc was Ernie, Daddy was Bert, Aunt Laura was Big Bird, and sister Katherine was Abby. Mom, the birthday legacy creator, always makes her children feel cherished with birthday extravaganzas.
Going on annual family vacations or weekend getaways also create lasting memories and provide quality time together. Where you travel to and what you do there with your children create lasting family traditions. I remember my parents driving all night from South Carolina to Louisiana for Thanksgiving dinner with our grandmother. All four of us children “slept” in the back of the station wagon while they drove. The Thanksgiving feast prepared by my grandmother was a wonderful treat after such a grueling trip.
What is your favorite family vacation tradition? Do you travel to visit relatives or take an adventure to someplace new and different? Your children will remember and cherish these family vacation traditions.
Family movie night was another one of our family’s favorite family traditions. Back when Blockbuster Video was a thing, my husband would take the older two children there to pick out a movie which we all watched together while munching on popcorn. For years, they called it “popcorn movie night.” In the later years of elementary and middle school, we all watched “ER” together because my husband and I enjoyed grading the show on its accuracies in portraying what really happens in an ER.
You can easily watch movies together as a family today, using Netflix or the Disney channel. Pick a movie that is good for all to watch together, then talk about the values it demonstrates. I heard Brene Brown say that her family – including one teenager and one college student – watched “Ted Lasso” together and then enjoyed discussing the meaning in each episode.
Even your bedtime routine is an important family tradition. Bedtime was my personal favorite part of the day – when I was home. Baths, brush teeth, and books were a welcome respite to my hectic NICU days. We were fortunate that all three of our children loved reading books at night before bed. My husband read “The Hobbit” to David in bits and pieces over many nights.
Children who follow bedtime routines are more likely to go to sleep earlier, take less time falling asleep, sleep longer, and wake up less during the night. When kids are small, of course, they want to sit in your lap and be read to. If they can pick out the book, they feel some sense of control, and it is normal for little ones to want to hear the same story repeatedly. How many times can you read Eric Carl’s “Brown Bear” or “The Mixed-Up Chameleon” repeatedly? As many as they desire!
My husband loved to read out loud the crazy poems from “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein. Bedtime routines teach your child self-care and lay the ground for working memory, attention, and other cognitive skills. They also foster parent-child bonding. Bedtime reading is your way of exposing your children to a love of books, to great stories, and to develop a closeness and connection to you that they will never forget. Bedtime reading is a tremendous family tradition.
And finally, the family photo albums warrant mention as an important family tradition. Certainly, by now your children have come home asking for pictures of themselves at certain ages for school projects. Do you have albums from which to choose those, or are you desperately scrolling on your phone to find one or two that are right? Maintaining a collection of family photos and creating albums to reflect on your shared experiences can be an important family tradition. When I created a scrapbook of special memories for each of my children when they turned twenty-one, I went through all the albums to gather the best pictures for illustrations of special events. Each one loved reviewing those cherished memories.
Moms matter in creating lasting family traditions. The most important traditions are those that resonate with your values and help build strong, loving bonds among you, your partner, and your children.