Family Tradition Ideas

7/25/2019 Family Tradition Ideas

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October 16, 2013

Fatherhood, Marriage, Relationships & Family

60+ Family Tradition Ideas

Last week we published an articlethat discussed why and how to establish family traditions. Traditions offer

numerous benefits: they strengthen your familys bonds, enrich the life you share together, contribute to your

childrens well-being, and create lasting memories. For this reason, they form one ofthe three pillars offamily culture.

Today we offer a list of over 60 specific family tradition ideas. You can incorporate some of these directly

into your family, or use them as inspiration for creating your own traditions.

Before we get started, lets cover a few things that will help ensure that your establishment of new traditions

will be met with success:

While its tempting to go crazy with starting lots of traditions, shoot for quality over quantity. If you do

a couple from within each category, youre gold.

Choose traditions that most resonate with you. Having said that, as you review the list, try not to

immediately write off some as silly or not elaborate enough. This isnt only about what appeals to you

as a jaded adult, but what will appeal to your kids. If you think back to your childhood, some

surprisingly silly and simple stuff was a lot of fun and created great memories.

Traditions need to be practiced regularly to be effective. Its easy to throw a tradition out the window

when life gets busy and youve had a long day. Commit to the tradition and do your best to be as

consistent as possible with it.

The ideas below come from The Book o New Famil Traditions, from mine and Kates res ective families,

amily Tradition Ideas | The Art of Manliness http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/10/16/60-family-traditi

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a y onnec on ra ons are e sma ngs you o every ay o re n orce am y en y an va ues.

Without thought and intentionality, your familys daily traditions can devolve into everyone surfing the

internet on their own devices. So be sure to incorporate some rituals that bring you together face-to-face and

allow you to re-connect each day.

Secret Handshake. Secret handshakes have been used by groups for millennia to distinguish members andnon-members. Make one up for your own family. It can be elaborate and complex or simple but meaningful.

An example of the latter comes from a family profiled in The Book of New Family Traditions. This family

had the tradition of squeezing each others hands three times to signal the three words I love you. On the

day the daughter got married, the father squeezed her hand three times as he walked her down the aisle.

Only she knew that this was happening, a tiny personal ritual lodged invisibly within one of the grandest and

most public, and she says it was one of the most moving moments of her life.

Family Meal. Countless studies have shown the positive influence that sharing a meal together as a family (it

doesnt have to be dinner) has on children. Well be dedicating an entire post to how to get the most out of

family meals, but in the meantime, consider these suggestions to turn the breaking of bread into a cherished

tradition:

First: no TV, no cellphones, and no tablets.

Begin with grace. If youre not religious, have everyone share something that theyre grateful for that

day.

Family news: everyone takes turns sharing something positive and negative that has happened to them

during the day.

Got any stories? This is a tradition that Kate and I have had for a few years. Each person is expected

to bring something interesting to the table that theyve read or heard during the day.

Family Prayer. For religious families, prayer is an important ritual. Family prayer doesnt have to be just adinnertime thing. You can pray as a family before everyone leaves in the morning, before everyone goes to

bed, or both. Our family has prayers at night. Everyone takes turns saying the prayer, including Gus.

Family Singing Time. Theres something about singing that unites humans on a primal level. Whats more,

through song, you can pass on your values and cultural heritage to your children. Our family always sings a

song or two when we put Gus to bed. Its something weve done since he was an infant, and you can tell it

makes him feel comforted, loved (we often sing songs about being a family), and relaxed. Its been cool to

watch him slowly learn the words and start singing along with us.

I really hope that Gus or Scout is interested in taking piano lessons, as I have a very fond dream of one day

standing around the piano singing Christmas carols together.

The What We Learned Today Journal. Buy a fancy, leather-bound journal. Each night before bed,

every member of the family needs to write something they learned during the day. Parents can transcribe for

little children. Entries dont have to be long or profound. It can be as simple as, If you touch a turtle, he puts

his head back in his shell. This is a great way to fostera love of lifelong learningin your children.

Surprise Daily Drawing/Note. Theres a guy here in Tulsa who drew little comics or wrote inspiring quotes

on the napkins he put in his daughters school lunches.Napkin Dadwas born. I want to do something like

this when my kiddos start school.

Brett & Kate McKay

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Bedtime Story. Children who have parents that read to them regularly typically do better in school and havelarger vocabularies than children who dont. Reading with your child will not only make them smarter, but

its a great way to bond. Theres something really comforting about hearing your dad read aloud to you. For

inspiration, check out this dad and daughterwho read together every night for 3,128 days straight until the

daughter was in college.

Evening Walks.Not only can walking help solve problems, but it can also strengthen families. Evening

walks are a great time to get some fresh air and digest the days events along with your dinner.

Family Call-and-Response Motto. When they were growing up, brothers Jim and John Harbaugh (the

coaches of the NFLs San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens respectively) didnt have much. But

their father always made them feel like they had everything they needed. To reinforce this feeling, he would

ask his boys, Whos got it better than us? To which they would respond: Nooo-body! Jim now uses the

same call and response to build the unity of his football team.

Weekly Connection Traditions

Family Game Night. Analog games, from cribbageto Apples to Apples, are a fun and cheap way to bond

and have fun together as a family. Tamp the competition down and ramp the laughter up. I personally cant

wait to play Boggle with Gus and Scout.

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special popcorn recipe or occasionally take the kids to the drugstore and let them each pick out their own

candy.

Saturday Football. Theres something incredibly relaxing and comforting about watching college football

with your family on a Saturday afternoon in the fall. Pass down your alma mater pride as you cheer on your

team together.

Pizza Night. Everyone loves pizza, and its nice to be able to look forward to having it on a certain night

each week. Skip the delivery now and again and make your own allowing the kids to decide how to top

their own super simple mini pizzas.

Dont like pizza? How about Taco Tuesday? We love Taco Tuesday around here.

Family Home Evening. Mormons are encouraged to set aside one night per week (usually Monday night) for

Family Home Evening. A typical Family Home Evening includes a fun activity and a short lesson or

devotional on some virtue or scripture. FHE is usually capped off with a special treat.

The goal of Family Home Evening is to teach your children the principles and values you want them to carry

with them as adults, all within an informal and loving atmosphere. FHE can be adapted by families of any

religious stripe or even families who arent religious. Theres no formula for Family Home Evening. Just

corral the kids for 30 minutes one night a week for fun, discussion, and eats.

Family Vinyl Dance Party. AoM contributor Cameron Schaefer shared a fun family tradition in his post on

getting started in vinyl record collecting. On Friday nights the Schaefer family gathers in their family room

for a Vinyl Record Dance Party. A family member selects a soundtrack for the night, and they all dance until

they collapse on the floor.

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Special Saturday/Sunday Morning Breakfast. Lots of families have special Saturday/Sunday morning

breakfast traditions. For some its pancakes or cinnamon rolls, for others its a giant breakfast casserole. Dads

and breakfasts just go together, so work on coming up with your own specialty.

Breakfast need not be a solely in-home tradition, however. I take Gus to Braumsevery Saturday morning for

breakfast. Pancakes and milk for Gus. Sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit for dad. Weve been doing this sinceGus was about 10 months old, and weve rarely missed a Saturday. Its a hoot to see Gus get all excited about

Breakfast at Braums on Friday night.

Dinner & Grocery Shopping. Every Monday we go as family to a grocery store that also has their own little

restaurant. We eat dinner there first and then do our shopping. Doesnt sound really exciting, but we all look

forward to it.

Weekly Family Meeting. Your family is an organization. And like any successful organization, you need to

plan, discuss issues, and synchronize schedules. Enter the weekly family meeting. Ill be dedicating an entire

post on how to run a successful family meeting in the future. Stay tuned.

Monthly Connection Traditions

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Full Moon Walks. A full moon occurs roughly every 29 days. While you may have gotten used to seeing

them, they really are a magical sight especially for kids who havent lost their sense of wonder. Whenever a

full moon has risen, take a walk outside at night as a family to have a look at it. Get into the woods

sometimes if you can in order to experience the awe of nature at night. This is a great way to get your kids

keyed in to the rhythms and cycles of our world.

Box of Goals. An important life skill for your children to develop is how to set and work towards a goal.

What better way to teach this than with a family tradition? Get a cigar box or fancy wooden box and on the

first day of each month, have your family members write down one goal they want to accomplish that month

on a piece of paper and place it in the box. When next month rolls around, take out the pieces of paper and

review the goals to see how everyone did. Then write new goals for the next month. Rinse and repeat.

Daddy Date. We have a friend who has three daughters. Ever since they were knee-high to a grasshopper, he

took one of them each month on a Daddy Daughter Date. Rules were simple. The daughter he spent the

evening with got to pick the activity they took part in. He didnt care what they did. His goal was to give each

one of his kids one-on-one time with dad.

The monthly date with dad isnt just for daughters. You can do something similar with your sons as well.

Family Service Day. If creating a culture of service is part of yourfamily mission statement, put that goal

into action with a monthly Family Service Day. Designate one Saturday or Sunday to serving others. It could

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Life Changes/Milestone Traditions

Milestone traditions celebrate events that may occur only a few times, or even just once for your immediate

family. But they become traditions as they are passed down from one generation to the next.

New Home Traditions

New Home Dedication. Buying a home is a momentous occasion and thus a great time for instituting a

family tradition. Some religious folks hold ceremonies in which they dedicate the home (and all those who

dwell in it) to God.

In the Jewish tradition, its customary to hold a Chanukat Habayit(home dedication) party. At this gathering,

words from the Torah are spoken and family and friends use the occasion to express their blessings and

wishes for a fruitful and happy stay in this new home.

New Muslim homeowners will often host a feast in their new house and those that enter are to leave theirblessing.

Differing Christian denominations have their own unique new home dedication rituals, but they typically

involve a dedicatory prayer and a reading from the Bible. For some ideas on which scriptures to read check

out this list. I know many Christian families that will place a plaque near their homes entryway with the

famous verse from Joshua 24:15 (As for me and my house) after a home dedication ceremony.

Its a Wonderful Life Blessing. In the classic holiday movie,Its a Wonderful Life, George Bailey and his

wife, Mary, give a nice housewarming gift/blessing to a family that just moved into a new house:

Mary: Bread that this house may never know hunger.

[Mary hands a loaf of bread to Mrs. Martini.]

Mary: Salt that life may always have flavor.

[Mary hands a box of salt to Mrs. Martini.]

George Bailey: And wine that joy and prosperity may reign forever. Enter the Martini Castle.

[George hands Mr. Martini a bottle of wine.]

You dont need to know a thoughtful couple like the Baileys to experience this tradition. Just do it yourself

when you move into your home. Make some focaccia maybe, and enjoy it with wine for mom and dad and

grape juice for the kiddos.

Mortgage Burning Party. This one is for you Dave Ramsey gazelles out there. Once you pay off your

home mortgage, throw a party with your family and ceremoniously burn your mortgage agreement. Mortgage

burning parties were actually once a common tradition in America, but due to changing mores and the

increasing mobility of Americans (thus making it less likely a homeowner will live long enough in a home to

pay it off), Mortgage Burning Parties are pretty much unheard of today. I think its a tradition well-worth

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Family Time Capsule.Bury a family time capsule when you move into what you think will be your foreverhome. Fill the capsule with some of your familys favorites things, notes, and items that represent the time

period. Then open in it up in 20 or 30 years. Make sure you exhume it if you end up moving sooner than you

thought you would.

School-Related Traditions

First Day of School Photos. On the first day of every school year, take your kiddos to the front of the house

and snap a picture of them for posterity. Youll enjoy looking back at how theyve grown through the ages. I

remember looking forward to this little ceremony as a kid. It was my chance to show off my cool new

backpack and Air Force One high-tops.

First Day of School Chalk Pep Talk. Kids can sometimes be a little nervous on the first day of school. Give

them a nice surprise by writing messages of encouragement on the driveway with chalk the night before. It

will put a smile on their face when they walk out the door the next day.

Parent/Teacher Conference Note. Whenever Kates parents came in for parent/teacher conferences, they

would leave a note for her in her desk, telling her how neat her desk was, how nice her artwork on the wall

was, and a nice thing the teacher had said about her. Kate says she really looked forward to finding the note

and that it was cool to think her parents had been there.

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dressed in their school colors, frame it, and pack it in their kiddos stuff when he or she shipped off to

college. Cheesy? A little bit, but I always thought it was a nice gesture.

Wedding Tradit ions

Night-Before-Wedding Roast. We have another friend whose family always stayed together at a hotel the

night before one of the kids got married. Theyd hang out and do a good-natured roast of the bride or groom-

to-be. They had a big enough immediate family (5 kids) to make this fun. If your family is smaller, invite

close extended family to take part too.

Birthday Traditions

Most families have traditions for celebrating birthdays. Cake, presents, dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. You

know, the usual. Below are some birthday traditions you may not have thought about.

First Cake Cut Wish. I picked this one up from Kates family. In addition to getting a wish for blowing outthe candles, the birthday boy or girl gets another wish for making the first cut into the birthday cake. Two

wishes, one cake. Cant beat that.

New Privilege/New Responsibility Cards. Amidst all the fun and hoopla, remind your kid that with age

comes greater power and with greater power comes greater responsibility. In addition to birthday presents,

present your child with two envelopes. One envelope is labeled, New Privilege; the other, New

Responsibility. Provide an age appropriate privilege and responsibility each year.

8th/ 18thBirthday Time Capsule.On your childs 8thbirthday have him fill a time capsule with some of the

things he likes and a note to himself. Open it a decade later on his 18

th

birthday.

Nose Grease. This birthday tradition comes from our friendly neighbors north of the border. In Canada

(particularly the Atlantic Coast providences) its common for the birthday boy or girl to get ambushed by

friends or family members and have their nose greased with butter for good luck. The buttered nose

supposedly makes the person too slippery for bad luck to catch them. This tradition is said to come from

Scotland. I think Im going to have to adopt this one as it hails from my ancestral homeland of Nova Scotia.

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The Yearly Measurement on the Door Frame. Many families have a doorframe where they keep rough

pencil lines marking off the height of their kiddos as they age. Make it a tradition to take the measurement onbirthdays.

Miscellaneous Traditions

Hunting Traditions. Our hunter/gatherer ancestors developed meaningful traditions to celebrate the

life-giving hunt. While hunting is no longer essential for survival, many families continue to have traditions

that surround their yearly hunt. A few include celebrating the first kill by having the new hunter share his

harvest with those in the group, the Hunting Beard, and the after-hunt breakfast or dinner. There are many

more. Id love to hear yours in the comments.

Meteor Watching Party. Once a year or so (use this handy calendar) get everybody up in the pre-dawn

hours, dress warmly, drive out to a spot where theres less light pollution, lie down on a blanket, and pour

cups of cider or cocoa from a thermos as you watch for meteors and point out different constellations to your

kids.

Welcome to Fall Dinner. Usher in the first day of the indisputably best season of the year by having a

harvest-y dinner: turkey, stuffing, apple crisp, and the like. Its something my mom did in my family growing

up and I really enjoyed it.

Baseball Opening Day. While football has overtaken baseball as Americas favorite sport, theres still

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Barbershop Visit with Dad. Every man should frequent the barbershop. So should every little boy. Instill in

your strapping little lad the time-honored, manly tradition of visiting the barbershop by making his first visit

a big deal. Take pictures of him getting his ears lowered and then take him out for breakfast or lunch

afterwards. From then on, get your haircuts together.

Annual Camping Trip. Inspire a love of the great outdoors in your kids by taking them camping at least

once a year. If you find a campsite you love, return to it again and again as you build special memories

around that place.

Another fun tradition is to pick a day each year that you go backyard camping with your kid.

Holiday Traditions

The holidays are the most tradition-rich time of the year. There are a lot of great classic traditions out there

from making cookies for Christmas to doing an egg hunt on Easter. Here are some holiday traditions you may

not have thought of.

Easter

Easter Basket Scavenger Hunt. Instead of setting out the Easter baskets by their bed or in the living room,

have your kids do a fun hunt for them. Leave the first clue by their beds, and have them follow one clue to

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not sure theres anything more fun as a kid than a scavenger hunt.

Egg Wars. The fun of dyeing Easter eggs doesnt have to end when you pour out the food coloring. On

Easter Day, commence the egg wars. Two people each hold an egg and on the count of three, they hit the end

of their eggs together. Whoevers egg cracks loses; the winner goes on to another battle. You can offer a prize

to whoever has the egg that lasts the longest. During the Great Depression, Kates grandfathers family was

so poor, that the prize was keeping the other persons egg.

Halloween

Pumpkinfest. Make the classic tradition of pumpkin carving extra special by finding a nice pumpkin patch

that you return to each year, taking a hayride while there, and making a whole pumpkin-themed meal to

precede the carving (pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie).

Tombstone Rubbing and Ghost Stories. Tombstone rubbing used to be a popular pastime with folks. Its

still popular among genealogists searching for info about ancestors. Basically, you just get some butcher

paper, place it over the face of the tombstone, and then rub charcoal or crayon on it so that the lettering on the

tombstone is transferred to the paper.

To make this activity a bit spookier, visit an old cemetery at night and have a contest to see who can get the

oldest tombstone rubbing. (Make sure to bring flashlights!) Afterwards, tell ghost stories while sitting in the

cemetery. Spoooky!

Candy Swapping Wizard. This is a good one if youre not crazy about your kids grazing on their trick-

o-treat candy for the next 6 months, but want to do something about it thats more fun than curmudgeonly.

Tell your kids to select X number of pieces of candy they get to keep, and then to place the rest of their booty

outside the door to their room. During the night, a wizard comes and swaps their candy for a gift.

Jack O Lantern Burial. After serving valiantly on Halloween Night, a carved Jack OLantern typically

experiences an ignoble end by slowly wilting away on the front porch and eventually being tossed in the

trash. One family featured in The Book of New Family Traditionsdidnt think their Jack O Lanterns deserved

such an anticlimactic demise. So they decided to give their carved pumpkins a proper burial the day after

Halloween. They have a small patch in their backyard thats designated as the Pumpkin Graveyard. The

day after Halloween the family brings their respective Jack O Lanterns to the graveyard and offer a short

eulogy that goes thusly:

We are gathered here to pay homage to our dearly departed Jack O Lanterns. Throughout their

short lives our Halloween Pumpkins have brought both us and our Trick-or-Treaters much joy.

We now consign them to the earth where they first came. May they rest in peace.

All of this is done, of course, with tongue firmly placed in cheek.

Says the mother of this family, The Great Pumpkin would be proud.

Thanksgiving

Thankful Box. As they hang out before dinner begins, family members are encouraged to take time to

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heartfelt (and occasionally humorous) thank yous, and in guessing who wrote what.

Turkey Bowl Football Game. For families that have huge extended family gatherings at Thanksgiving, a

morning of touch football is a great way to work up an appetite for turkey and pumpkin pie later that day.

Watching the Lions Lose.No Thanksgiving would be complete without the family gathered around the TV

to watch the Detroit Lions lose. It would be like Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie or the Macys

Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Christmas

Out with the Old, In with the New. To teach your kids to live just a bit more simply, to accumulate less

stuff, and not to hold onto what they have too tightly, require that for however many gifts they get for

Christmas, they have to get rid of the same number of their old toys/clothes. Throw away or donate what they

discard.

Glass Wax Stencils. This is a tradition from Kates family that we plan to carry into ours. Glass wax is a

liquid window cleaner that comes out pinkish and dries with a white frost. By blotting it with a sponge overstencils, you can, as the makers of glass wax used to tout, turn you window into a winter wonderland!

Stenciling with glass wax used to be popular decades ago, but has almost entirely disappeared, making both

the stencils and the wax hard to find. Look for the stencils on ebay and the glass wax at the Vermont Country

Store.

Pickle on the Christmas Tree.Legend has it that during the Civil War, Private John C. Lower was being

held at a prison camp and was given a pickle on Christmas Eve by one of the guards. Starving, he believed

the pickle helped save his life, and after the war he began a tradition of hiding a pickle on the Christmas tree

on Christmas Eve for his family to find the next morning. Other origin stories for this 19thcentury American

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Countdown to Christmas with Books.There are a lot of fun ways to count down to Christmas with your

kids, from making a paper chain to opening the doors of an advent calendar. Heres a new one I picked up

from The Book of New Family Traditions: wrap 24books about Christmas, and open and read one each night

during December. On the 24th, the book that is opened is The Night Before Christmas.

Run a Marathon Before Opening Presents.The parents of a family we know who are very ambitious,

gung-ho about life, and love physical challenges would make their kids run a marathon before they got to

open presents. Not individually, mind you! The 26 miles was split between the parents and their 4 kids,

depending on age and ability. Quite a way to teach delayed gratification.

New Year s Eve

Rent a Hotel Room.Staying at a hotel is terribly exciting when youre a kid. Rent a room on New Years

Eve, bring board games and snacks, let the kids swim, and have a family slumber party to ring in the new

year.

Banging on Pots and Pans at Midnight.The tradition of noisemakers at midnight originates from the belief

that it would scare away bad luck and evil spirits. Let your kids run down the streets banging on pots and

pans when the clock strikes twelve.

Eating Chinese.Im not sure why we associate New Years Eve with Chinese food, since the Chinese New

Year is on a different date, but Kate and I have started a tradition of going out for Chinese food on December

31. Just seems lucky somehow.

If youre feeling more ambitious, try your hand at making our own fortune cookies and creating personalized

fortunes for your family.

Putting Regrets to the Fire.Have each family member write down and then share one of their regrets from

the past year. Then throw the regrets into the fireplace to symbolize a fresh start.

Read the other posts in the series:

The Importance of Creating a Family Culture

How and Why to Create a Family Mission Statement

The Importance of Establishing Family Traditions

How to Plan and Lead a Weekly Family Meeting

How to Get the Most Out of Family Dinners

How to Become Your Familys Transitional Character

Despite the size of thi s l ist, there are tons of other great traditi ons out there we didn t even menti on al l

the specif ic reli gious/ethn ic/cul tur al traditions that exist! Tradition ideas are limited only by your

creativity. Please share your famil ys tradit ions in the comments!

Illustrations by Ted Slampyak

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