Traditions are a wonderful way to bond a family and give them a solid foundation. They are also a lot of fun! I am always adding things and at times deleting if they no longer work for us. I'd love to hear others ideas. Here are our traditions:
First day of school- We celebrate learning with a sundae making party after dinner.
Dinner as a family and play the high low game. We take turns telling about the high point of the day and the low point.
Halloween- We have a few traditions we have come to love.
1. Spooky dinner. We eat by candle light a halloween themed meal, complete with spooky music and skeleton goblets. After dinner, we have a family party with halloween themed games and prizes.
2. Trick or Treating with Mom & Grandma's followed by a church carnival. The kids with adult supervision trick or treat throughout elementary school. Our costumes must be positive.
Thanksgiving-
It tends to be a quite day at our house. Which makes it a perfect day to start to put the tree up. After giving thanks as we share our Thanksgiving meal, we traditionally start to decorate for Christmas. Once the Christmas tree is complete, the children look forward to a visit by George the elf, who leaves them the first gifts of Christmas. A small simple gift, as he is only an elf.
Christmas- There is so much fun, but here are a few highlights:
A weekly family Christmas movie.
Reading our collection of Christmas stories
Zoo lights and go on Christmas light walks in the neighborhood.
The jellybeans draw each others names, go on a special outing with mom to purchase their special gift for their sibling.
Christmas Eve we leave reindeer food out for Rudolph and his team. Oatmeal is great its absorbed by morning. At bedtime we read the Christmas story of Jesus.
Christmas morning we open presents, one person at a time..to make it last.
In their stocking is a party horn, to remind them its Jesus's birthday.
During the evening, we have Christmas cookies and sit around the table talking and writing our thank you cards.
New Years:
I'm not big on going out on New Years so we host the kids friends. We have the horns, fun foods and play different games.
Valentines:
Why go out when you can create magic at home. I set a fancy table, complete with candles and champagne glasses to hold their sparkling cider. There is a heart theme throughout dinner and dessert. Each year I set up a scavenger hunt we fondly call a heart hunt. Taking pictures of items in the house so one picture leads to the next and the last picture leads to their Valentine treats. Pictures are used so our non readers can play too. The picture cards then become a fun game for them to play again and again.
Easter:
Easter Eve, we decorate easter eggs. We then make cards and tie bows on the egg cartons and take them to not only Grandma's house but to other family and friends who no longer have little ones coloring eggs. It just does not seem like easter without colored eggs. It also gives us an excuse to dye more eggs. Our bed time story is the Easter story.
We celebrate after church, during church too for that matter. The kids each receive a spring outfit. We no longer do the dresses that are to fancy for school. They each have baskets which are filled with candy and small trinkets hidden to find Easter morning.
Easter we've let the tradition of the big Easter dinner go and have exchanged it for a picnic at the park. The Easter bunny leaves the kids a family gift of a slip and slide or a play pool an afternoon treat as Arizona is already heating up, but the real pool is not warm enough to swim.
Birthdays:
We have some guidelines that we go by. Friend parties start when they are turning 5. They can either have a bigger gift or a party. We practice before the party on how to say thank you and be a gracious host.
The special day belongs to the birthday holder. We start with their favorite breakfast and end with their favorite dinner. Their dinner chair is decorated with balloons and streamers. Sometimes we do parties and other times they would rather take a friend to join the family on a special outing. When we do parties, they are theme oriented, I find it makes planning easier. Then we turn basic birthday games into a theme version. We make our own cakes and have started to do cupcakes. Cupcakes are great they are just the right portion, a cup cake tree makes a great center piece and there is no birthday spit on your cake.
Birthday themes we've enjoyed:
Tropical
Army
Superhero
Hearts
Bubbles
Hello Kitty
Tie Dye
I plan ahead and purchase on clearance little trinkets that would be nice for gift bags or prizes. Walmarts after christmas clearance often has little treasures for a girls party bag.
Though we have a theme, it is not all "name brand" like Hello Kitty. I may do a basic pink table cloth from the dollar tree and then purchase only the Hello Kitty plates. It blends, the theme is apparent but the cost is kept down. Our last party we made flower hair clips for the goodie bags-big hit! The girls are still seen wearing them.
