How To Create And Keep Family Traditions

Family traditions are a set of behaviours that are repeated and that have symbolic meaning within the family. These traditions provide families with a sense of identity and belonging. They can be very emotional and will often be reminisced about and discussed within the family. Family traditions are usually something that is continuously talked about year after year. They are something that can be looked back on as a classic ‘family’ thing when you’re older. Family traditions are something all the family can enjoy together for years and years.

Family traditions are important for giving your family a sense of identity. They also give your family to opportunity to form unique bonds and bring the entire family closer together. Family traditions often tell a unique story about your family. Everyone’s family is different, and every family has different traditions. 

Although these are just a few examples of family traditions, they are some great ones. Every single family is completely unique, so every family’s traditions are going to be different. It’s possible to make a tradition out of anything, even something as simple as a weekly baking day, or a weekly trip to the cinema – anything you do routinely as a family can become a family tradition. 

Below are some examples of family traditions to give you some ideas before you get started. Use these ideas to create your own twist on family traditions. Your kids will call upon these memories for years to come.

A yearly camping trip is a great family tradition that all the family can enjoy. There are so many activities that the whole family can enjoy while camping. Some examples are hiking, fishing, wildlife spotting and so much more. Not only that, but everyone can have fun when it comes to putting the tent up and doing the essential things like cooking.  It’s a great family tradition that the kids will just love. 

Christmas is a magical time and the perfect time to bring in some family traditions.  A great tradition would be decorating the tree together. This is something that the children can grow up with and repeat year after year. A Christmas tree can have a lot of sentimental value within a home. What could be better than a tree that has a little piece of all the members of the family in it. This is a lovely tradition that can be repeated every Christmas. 

 Another Christmas tradition could be decorating Christmas cookies. The children will love getting involved with baking and decorating. The whole family can then enjoy eating the cookies as well as sharing them with the extended family during this magical family time. 

This is a great one for young children. There’s a lot of things that you can learn about your child by spending some time with them at bedtime. Ask them some questions about their day, read a story to them or maybe even sing to them. Whatever you choose to do, your child will feel peace and happiness every night as they go to sleep. This is a great family tradition to solidify the bond between you and your child. 

This is an idea that, if I’m completely honest, I got from the TV show Friends. On the show, Ross and Monica Geller who are brother and sister reminisce about their childhood and they they always had a family football game every year. The six friends then pursue their own game based on the Geller tradition. This is a great tradition as thanksgiving comes every year, so it’s a tradition that will be enjoyed year after year by young and old. 

So now that we know what family traditions are, and have seen some examples of them, how do we actually create these family traditions? The following list highlights some of the important steps to take when it comes to creating your own traditions that your family can enjoy year after year. 

It’s great to use traditions from your own past and pass them down to your own family as this creates an even more extended tradition. These kinds of traditions are ones that your family can reminisce upon, whether they're old or young, and ones that are easily passed down through generations. A personal example of this I have is that, the week between Christmas and New Year, we always go to my nana’s house for a meal and end with a traditional English trifle. This is a trifle recipe that has been passed down my family through many generations and I hope that one day I get to be the person to serve up the trifle. It’s a simple tradition, but one that has been in the family for many decades and everyone in the family can reminisce about the years of eating this ‘famous’ trifle. 

However, not all your family traditions should be ones brought from your own past. It’s important to create new traditions that are unique just to your family. Creating new traditions is simple. Think of an idea of something that you’d like to do with your family. Try that idea out and if your whole family enjoys it then hey presto – you’ve got yourself a new family tradition. 

This might be the hardest step – keeping your family traditions going – especially as your children grow older. An easy way to keep family traditions going is to centre them around yearly holidays such as Christmas or Thanksgiving. This makes it easier for you to remember to keep them going. Everybody remembers when it’s Christmas time, so everyone will remember to participate in the Christmas family traditions. 

 By passing down traditions from your past as well as making new traditions, it might be easier to keep traditions going. I know personally I really want to keep my family’s traditions going for many years to come. That’s because I believe that it is unique to our family, and these are things that I’d like our family to continue to do. I’d love it if my children and grandchildren end up keeping our family traditions going.