Hey everyone,
This week, let's celebrate the rich tapestry of our family traditions! From holiday rituals to unique customs passed down through generations, family traditions play a vital role in shaping our identities and connecting us to our heritage.
What are some of your favourite family traditions? Do you have any special rituals for holidays, birthdays, or other significant occasions? How have these traditions evolved over time, and what new ones have you started with your own family?
Share your stories and the traditions that mean the most to you. Let's enjoy a heartwarming discussion about the customs that bring us together and celebrate the diversity of our backgrounds.
Feel free to join the conversation and share your thoughts!
It feels a bit awkward writing this, but I'm Jewish and just celebrated Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year). Our Rosh Hashanah dinners include many traditional foods, some universal and some just family traditions. These include dates, apple with honey, fish, beet greens, and pomegranate. Our family eats gummy fish heads (because we prefer them to actual fish heads), peas so we have a year of peace, and banana bread so we have a bonne année (good year in French). These are basically prayers for the coming year.
That's a good topic. Whether we like or not, our family traditions help form who we are today.
Christmas traditions...
We would put the same little wreaths with candles for the front windows, lights strung along the outline of the house, and decorations, decorations, decorations. There would always be a day for baking... peanut butter and shortbreads with colorful icing and toppings; blueberry pies, lemon pies, bread and rolls. The aromas wafted through the house for days. The tree. We would travel for hours for the perfect tree like the Griswolds... the writers and director got that right in Christmas Vacation. Trek across vast fields of hip-deep snow(I was a child) examining each spruce tree in the woods. One year, the perfect tree was actually the top 8 feet of a 30-foot tall spruce.
And Dad cut it every year.
The bestest tradition had to be chocolate chip pancakes on Christmas morning, smothered with margarine and syrup. And that one I still enjoy.
My mother grew up in a very strict millitary family. It was one steeped heavy in tradition including the classic over the top christmas. As such when she broke free from it she wanted to start her own traditions, the first one she made was chocolate fingers on christmas morning for breakfast. It is the only tradition we still hold to this day. Something I have yet to write about but now you have sparked it for me. And I think in the style of a charol would suit it best.
A family Christmas tradition I had as a child was going to see a pantomime at the local theatre with my mother and maternal grandmother. When she passed, mum and I went a couple more times but whether it was too difficult for her to be sat there without her own mum, or she thought perhaps I’d outgrown it, I’m not sure. It was a wonderful tradition, and if the day comes that I should have children definitely something I’d like to take up again.