GTKY - Childhood Memories & Traditions to Pass On or Scrap

Elyse1384

What childhood memories or traditions did you grow up with that you would like to carry on?  What memories or traditions were you not thrilled about that have molded you to try a different approach?

FSUNole31

We have some holiday ones that we do from when I was a kid.  A Christmas Eve gift exchange is one of them and we always go to my aunts house for this holiday boat parade.  We also loved coloring Easter eggs and doing a Easter egg hunt on Easter morning.  As far as non holiday ones, I am trying to do little birthday things with my kids where they wake up to a balloon and their bday gift the morning of since we usually do a little family party a few days before or after their birthday. We also have gone to Disney for their birthdays since they turned 1 for a little extra celebration since we have passes.  I am also making them a year in review type book from shutterfly for every year of their lives.  I am behind though at the moment and really need to catch up on that.

I look forward to seeing other peoples responses!

Elyse1384

One of my favorite childhood memories was watching sports with my Dad.  Sure, I was a tomboy which helped, but I loved bonding with him and feeling that special connection of a shared interest.  He taught me a lot about sports and loyalty.  To never give up on your team and be loyal (lessons which translates across life events and relationships). Before the crazy run in this century by the Boston area teams, they all SUCKED.  They made losing an art form (especially the Red Sox).  I'll never forget watching games with my dad and when he took me to my first Red Sox and Pats games.  I didn't even care how badly the teams lost.  I loved spending time with him.  I can't wait to take my kids to their first games, teach them about sports and share in the emotional highs and lows of being a sports fandom.

I remember being frustrated about my inability to understand what my father and his family were saying at gatherings.  My father is an immigrant and was bullied and teased as result of his broken english and "different" appearance (eg clothing, hair styles).  As such, he was fearful of teaching my brother and I foreign languages.  Boy do I wish he had!  One of his and my biggest regrets.  I really want my kids to speak multiple languages. It is so important in today's world.   

Elyse1384

FSUNole31 said:

I am also making them a year in review type book from shutterfly for every year of their lives.  I am behind though at the moment and really need to catch up on that.

*Snip*

I'm doing the same thing!  I just finished DD's first year book and I'm working on 2016.  Such a cute memory to give them.  

I'm also a dork and register an email account when they are born so they have something for future use.  I email them on milestones (eg birthdays, first steps) or send pictures along the way.  I figure it might make for an interesting read when they're older and it helped remind me with DD "Oh yeah... DS went through that too.  I didn't even remember that!".

Kylieslip24

I didn't really have any traditions growing up so we're still trying to figure out what to do for our kids. So far we do photo shoots (at home, I shoot) for each milestone birthday, so first 4 weeks, each month first year, 18 mos, and then each year after that. At first it was just because we had no money for professionals, but now dd and I make a day out of it and she LOVES getting her picture taken. We also do garden stones with their footprints in them. Alternating feet so someday I will have their little feet running through my garden. This is one of my favorite things to see outside. This year we are trying out all sorts of weekly traditions to see what we like best. Game night, movie night, pizza night, night walk. So far dd loves family game night so I think that one will for sure stick. 

Stankonia2014

We do the Shutterfly books too! I make one for each kid, they're all complete up until this year, but I wait for good coupon codes to purchase.  I didn't have many photos from childhood, so this is one I wanted to ensure I did. Now their baby books is a different story.

krex-2

We didn't have a lot of traditions growing up, but DH and I have created a few that we want to pass down.  We try to spend the 4th of July in Washington DC, Christmas Eve is spent watching "Polar Express" and Midnight Mass, and we also do Sinterklaas from our time in the Netherlands.  We'll pass those on to our little girl, and hopefully make some new ones along the way!

teacher mom-2

Keeping: Easter egg hunt on Easter morning at the house (DH's family didn't do this). Letting her pick a random fruit or veggie she wants to try when we go grocery shopping. My Dad always did this with us and I loved it. Waking up at our own home on Christmas morning. DH's Italian feast on Christmas Eve. 

New: Making her a photobook each year from Shutterfly, Singing her the same good night song each night and going on nature walks.

Scrap: Going to the movies on Christmas Day and eating Thanksgiving dinner super early (had to since my had worked). Unfortunately, going to Florida twice a year since we just don't have the money.

BellaO21

@Elyse1384 my sister does the same thing with emails for both of her kids!

I'm loving the idea of "a year in review" books for them!! That is definitely something I want to do for this LO! 

Since my birthday is also in June (25th) we always happened to be on vacation the week of... on the day of my bday my parents would always let me pick out exactly what I wanted to do on that day... this is something I want to do with Victoria as well. 

berg

Some of y'all traditions are just so super cute!!
Keeping:
-As kid's Santa always came to our house (with one gift) on the fire truck on Christmas Eve, this is something I would love to have happen.  If not one gift will be opened on Christmas Eve.
-Special coffee cake recipe from my great grandmother made for every big holiday (Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc)
-Spending Memorial Day weekend in NJ at the beach with our families.  My Aunt throws a party every year on the Sunday and a lot of my cousins who live far away (there are 16 of us) come with their kids.  It's been going on forever and the perfect kick off to summer.
-My family rents a house in OBX for a week every summer.  My bro and sis started it with just their families when their oldests were 2 (they are 6 months apart).  In the last 7 years my parents have joined them.  DH and I were holding off until we were either pregnant or already had a LO.  Partly because we'd rather spend our vacation time and money going some place more exciting for us as non-parents, but mostly because my sibling, parents, in-laws, and 5 nieces and nephews (ages 8-3) in one house for a week seemed like it would prevent us from ever having children.  So next summer this will start.  DH may be less than thrilled.  I just keep talking about all the golf he'll get to play.  I'm really close with my cousins so it's important to me that our kids are around their cousins a lot.

Making New:
-Filling the bedrooms with balloons and decorations on LO's birthday for when they wake up.
-Challah french toast on Christmas morning to go with the coffee cake to represent MIL who was Jewish 
-Keeping a jar/vase full of our memories/struggles throughout the year and reading them together on NYE
-Weekly game night (like @Kylieslip24 said)

Stankonia2014

We also do dates with each child on their respective birthdate day each month, so DD1 has a date with a parent every 6th of the month, DD2 every 15th, and DD3 every 19th. It allows each child that one on one time and they get to do something special of their choosing. 

We also have family night, either games or movies once or twice a month. 

For Easter since neither of our families are religious, we gather family and have a massive egg hunt. It gets very competitive. 

For Christmas Eve and Christmas, we stick to traditions already in place by the great grandparents, when they pass away, we will make our own, but for now we go to their house and spend the days with them. 

meilay

Keep:
-Family dinners. We ate dinner together most nights of the week and I really miss those dinners. My mom wasn't unreasonable about it so we were still allowed to have lives as we got older but it was done frequently. 
-opening one gift on Christmas Eve
-my uncle's 4th of July BBQ is a big deal every year and I can't wait for baby to be a part of it

New
-cooking with her all the time. I learned basics from my mom (like how to bake chicken) but we didn't really cook together
-some sort of family trip every year. It will most likely be back east to visit DH's family but I plan to take her to the national museums and zoo all that when she's older in addition to seeing in-laws

Scrap
-I guess church is something we're scrapping as a tradition. It just doesn't fit with how we hope to raise her to think about faith. 

FSUNole31

@Stankonia2014 I love the date idea!!  That is so cute!!

silliegirlie143

I'm getting the biggest kick out of seeing everyone's memories and traditions you want for your families! 


Keep- Mexican hot chocolate and tamales for Christmas, big Thanksgiving dinner, biannual family reunion for 4th of July with my Mom's family, dinner together at the table (nightly for now but at least weekly when the kids get older), fave meal made to order for everyone's bday, a trip somewhere for each major graduation

New- fried chicken for Christmas

Scrap- homemade Halloween costumes (I LOVED mine, but I just don't have the time or patience for that)


I'm sure there are more, but the brain's not functioning so well at 1am...

DewyK

@FSUNole31 - I also make yearly photo books on Shutterfly for each kid. I love making them and love looking back at them! 

Kylieslip24

Ooh Mexican hot chocolate and tamales sound amazing now! @silliegirlie143

LOTON01

My Grandma always dinner Italian Sunday dinner with the entire family. After she passed it kind of went away. I want to start it with my children. I loved it! 

Mtnmommy

I never really grew up with any traditions. My parents just weren't like that. So I'm making my own.
Here's what I'm working on:
My sister comes in for Halloween every year and it's her holiday.

Jewish Christmas Eve: drive around looking at holiday lights, order in Chinese and watch movies

Making birthdays huge special days where they'll be "princess of the day."

Each kid gets a special date of their own with H and I every month.

For their Bat Mitzvahs, I'm going to give them a choice to either have a big party afterward, or we can all go on a nice family vacation and they get to bring their best friend.

NamelessAria

Keeping:

• Family holidays where we make an effort to always do the big holidays (Christmas and Thanksgiving) with either my family or my husband's family. I loved getting to see my grandparents and everyone for holidays and I really want my son to have that experience also. Neither set of grandparents live nearby so I feel it's extra important that LO at least get holidays with family. Obviously we'll try to visit other times also but, ya know.
• Family dinners. This is something that's really important to me but that doesn't really mean much to my husband. So while I plan to keep this I'm not sure how it will work out if I can't convince my husband it's important.
• Whatever my husband wants to keep from his childhood I guess.

Scrapping:

• Church on Sundays. My husband and I both grew up going to some form of religious worship weekly which for me was church on Sundays. While I did enjoy it when I was little it was something that I started having problems with later in life. Neither my husband or I attend church now so we don't really want to raise our child going to church. We'll still pass on the beliefs and morals that are important to us but it won't be done by sending LO to Sunday school or whatever.
• Sports all the time. My family life was sorta ruined by sports. I know it's great for some families and it works out well to bring people together. But in my home growing up it was a constant source of tension and division. Neither my husband or I watch sports now. Sports just don't mean anything to us. So I'd like to keep sports to a minimum in our home. Obviously if LO is interested in sports later on when he's old enough to choose his own hobbies we'll support him in that. And I'm not opposed to introducing him to sports a bit younger as a purely recreational thing where he can go get some exercise. But I don't want something where family holidays revolve around what game is on and "family time" is sitting in front of a TV glued to a sports game.
• Pretend Santa. My parents tried to keep up the charade that "no there totally is a Santa and he brings you presents!" but... the whole thing feels so forced. And so many children I knew were horribly upset and even angry/distrusting of their parents when they found out it was all a lie. I know some children accept that there isn't really a Santa without much fuss but I don't want to risk my son being one of those children who is traumatized and distrusts me because I've lied for so long about it. So we'll be skipping the whole Santa thing.
• Rigid ideas on the "right" and "wrong" way to parent. My parents parented my brother and I the same exact way even though we were 3 very different people. The same things just didn't work for all of us. I want to try to keep in mind with my son (and hopefully other children later on) that every child is different and responds to different things. 

Starting:

• Bed time routines. My parents never had any bed time routines for me or my brothers. Bed time was "hey it's <whatever time> go to bed. Don't forget to brush your teeth." and off we went. I HATED going to bed. I want to set up a fun bed time routine for my son both as a way for us to spend time together and also a way to make bedtime less dreaded. I'd really like to have something where I read him a bedtime story. Or tell him a story. Or something like that. I'd also ideally like to have it where he goes to bed at roughly the same time each night. 

I'm not sure what else I want to do as far as making new traditions and such. My husband and I honestly haven't talked about it a lot since it all still seems so far off for us. It feels like forever till baby is here and then he'll be a tiny baby for so long where he doesn't really understand what's going on and can't really participate in hobbies or traditions. And I guess we're both still worried that something will go wrong and this won't end up being our take-home baby so we're sorta scared to "jinx it" by planning out all the traditions and things.

Knottie42089123

Keeping:
Language- my little guy is gonna learn Spanish come hell or high water. My plan is to enroll him in Spanish immersion Montessori once he's old enough. I'll figure out some other ways to support his comfort speaking it. 

Tossing:
Late nights- I grew up thinking I was so cool that we stayed up till the wee hours all the time, during summers and when I'd go with my parents to parties. Nope nope nope. We are going to be big on sleep hygiene in the Knottie household. 

krex-2

I really love the idea of cooking with kids.  My mom never taught me how to cook and I was a kitchen disaster for the first few years on my own!  I've learned a lot and have become (I think) a pretty good cook, but I want to pass that on!

silliegirlie143

@Knottie42089123 Language! How could I leave that one out?! DD is learning Spanish, Chinese, and ASL. We feel Language is a beneficial skill and a tie to our cultures. The ASL came from Baby Signing Language program that she adored so we figured we would keep encouraging that while her interest lasts.