Family Traditions and Gratitude

Today's TeachThought reflection is about family traditions. My 8 year old daughter, Nina, and I came up with quite a few traditions we have:

  • My extended family gets together on the morning of New Year's Eve and go bowling.
  • We attend the Dearborn Memorial Day Parade every Memorial Day.
  • Birthdays are quite festive in our house. I sewed a Birthday-patterned table runner for the dining room table and it comes out a week or so before our birthdays and a birthday cake candle holder goes on it. 
  • The order for serving birthday cake slices is as follows: the guest of honor is first and then it goes from oldest to youngest--no one starts eating until everyone has a slice. (I came up with this plan off the top of my head when my children were toddlers--it's withstood the test of time.)
  • Every third week in June my sister and I take our children to Camp Dearborn-our kids do the same things there now that we did as kids.
  • We also go to Crystal Mountain for a week in the summer--it's a new tradition.
  • The first day of school is celebrated with a pencil cake (we seem to have a lot of cake-related traditions!) and a small gift.
  • We have an Advent wreath that is lit during the four Saturdays of Advent.
  • We eat Hungarian cookies called kifli every holiday season, thanks to my mom (I need to learn how to make them). 
I am grateful for these traditions because family history is important to me and I see how important they've become to my 11 year old son and my daughter. It's reaffirming that traditions are passed down to younger generations. As a history teacher I am especially proud to see that my children realize that history is in the big events and small events in life. #reflectiveteacher 




Comments

  1. Learning and Teaching BuzzNovember 22, 2014 at 11:05 PM

    Wow! Look at those cakes! Beautiful. I loved reading about your traditions. I sometimes think it's something we seem to lack in New Zealand. I wonder if it's because we're quite a 'new' country and influenced so strongly by our English heritage or is it something else. The US seems to have some very strong and powerful traditions. Love reading your posts. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mrs. SlavieroJanuary 13, 2015 at 6:08 PM

      HI Justine, thanks for your kind words! Some of our family traditions were created by our family and we reinforce them when we do them every year. Traditions are meant, in my opinion, to be created. Any day is a good day to start a tradition. :)

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