Sunday, August 30, 2009

Facilitating Traditions

This morning at church the youth ministers encouraged families with young 'uns to write a family mission statement. Zach and I worked on one for awhile and came up with something pretty decent. But it got me to thinking about priorities and making good memories, which led me to think on family traditions. We Bishops have a few of our own: opening presents from each other on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning, family game and pizza night on Fridays, reading three books + singing two songs + saying 1 prayer each and every night with the boys. These are good things and I like them. I want to acquire a new tradition or two though. I want to develop those truly heartwarming family moments that our children remember forever.

I will never forget my mom pulling out the Elvis Presley Christmas album every single year and singing along to it while we decorated the Christmas tree. That is a precious memory to me and I want our kids to have a bunch of similar ones. Since my mom can't do that anymore, Mike and I found that Elvis album on CD a couple of years ago and we play it around our house to keep that memory alive. (I'll have ahahahah Blue (ahahah) Christmas (ahahah) without Elvis.)

So, what do you guys do with your kids? Give me some excellent ideas!

4 comments:

Cara said...

We also do the movie night on every other Friday. Everyone gets to pick their favorite candy bar. I pop popcorn. We also all answer the question "What was the best part of your day" at dinner each night. I'm trying to think of more, but nothing is coming to mind! :)

Ilena said...

We are still working on developing family traditions. But a couple of things that I do that the kids hopefully will think is neat in the future is I get them a Christmas book and give it to them on Christmas Eve and write in the front cover with special memories from that year. Bryson gives me a book each Mother's Day that is actually a kids book but it is relevant to how they are at that age. I have also kept a journal for Brody and write on pieces of paper for Meg and keep them in a cute lunch pail that a friend made her.

I love the Elvis music and the Friday night game night. I would love to do something like that, but we are just not good planners!

Happy Early B-day to us both :)

Andrea said...

I just read Kathryn's post on another friend's blog about "backwards dinner night" where they would have dessert, then entree, then appetizer/fruit. I love this idea! I also love Cara's "what was the best part of your day" and Ilena's Christmas book idea. I'm so glad I did this post! Great thoughts.

Cara said...

happy happy birthday!!! I remembered one more....the kids get to pick out one new Christmas ornament each year. My plan is to give them all to them once they get married (if they want them).

Good F words

Hey! Not all F words are bad. The best words in the world are family, fun, food, and fabulous! I'm challenging myself to expand my own appreciation of the fabulous F words out there. I'm starting a list of words that I'll eventually write about. Let me know if you think of another fun one.



Family ~ Father ~ Fast ~ Fanatic ~ Fanciest ~ Festive ~ Fanciful ~ Freedom ~ Friday ~ Flower ~ Flagrant ~ Fixable ~ Forceful ~ Forbidden ~ Foray ~ Foppish ~ Fledgling ~ Frappacino ... hmmm... maybe ?