The Mom, Wife, Dream Life

As mentioned in the last blog, traditions and memories go hand in hand. Memories are a little different from traditions, but to be honest, they aren’t that far from being the same.

A memory, according to Google, is something that’s remembered from the past; it’s a recollection of something. If you want to learn about some of the fun fall memories we create as a family, or want some fall memory ideas, go read this blog. A tradition is the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or passed along through the generations. As you can tell, the actual definitions of these words are pretty different, but let me ask you this. Are the traditions you make in your family memories that you will cherish forever? Are the memories you make often repeated and considered to be a “tradition” that you continue with? I know for me, the traditions my family had growing up often reflect a lot in my memories, and they will always be something I look back at and reminisce about.

Traditions happen in every family, whether they realize it’s one or not. Most people claim that their family traditions revolve around the national holidays, but what they don’t realize is that family traditions probably happen a lot more frequently than they’d think. Something our families do each week is Sunday dinners. Whether we go spend time with Ethan’s side of the family, mine, or both. We always have Sunday dinners with at least one side of the family. Very rarely do we have family dinners by ourselves. It’s more of a habit that we all get together, but for me, it’s considered a tradition, and I’ll tell you why.

What Was My Childhood Like?

Growing up as a young girl, my family lived close to my dad’s parents, my grandparents. We lived fairly close to my mom’s parents as well, but it was about 1-1.5 hours away, whereas my dad’s parents were only about 5 minutes away. Every Sunday after church, we would go home, change, and head to my grandparents’ house. Or, if we kids wanted to go over earlier, which we often did, we would walk to their house directly from church. Our church building was about a block away from their house, so it was easy to navigate. Every Sunday, the household contained my family, my grandparents, my dads cousin his two girls, and my great grandpa. If it was on occasion, such as a holiday then there most likely would be a bunch more cousins, aunts and uncles that joined us. This was the best day of the week, in my opinion, because not only did we get to be together as a family, we got to be with grandparents, cousins, and eat food! How great is that?!

What is a Core Childhood Memory I Have?

There was one Sunday that I remember, mostly because it’s now a very fun memory to relive in my head rent free… anyway, there was one Sunday where we arrived at Grandma and Papas house, and Grandma was pretty flustered, (side note… She is a phenomenal cook, probably the best cook I know outside of Gordon Ramsay, and I hope I can be that good someday as well.) She was a little upset because the dinner she had made turned out horribly. I can’t remember the specifics, but it either didn’t cook properly, or didn’t taste good. Either way, it was a fail in her book. We tried to help her feel better, but it was one of those days when homemade food was just not going to cut it. So my Papa (grandpa) got the keys and drove to town. When he got back, he had got the family buckets from KFC. That was the best Sunday dinner ever (at least according to little me, I don’t remember how old I was). I loved my grandma’s cooking (still do!,) but this was like a treat, something we didn’t get to do often, and it’s something we can laugh about now. What I remember most from this, is that it didn’t matter what we ate for dinner;, what mattered is that we were together, laughing, and bonding closely with one another. Our relationships grew, and that will always be a good memory that I hold dear to my heart.

To you, this might just seem like a fun get-together that my family did, and now that I have my own family, it’s something we do with both of our parents and siblings now. This is a tradition. You may be asking how, let’s go back to the definition of the word tradition. A tradition is the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or passed along through the generations. This little thing that our families do each Sunday didn’t just happen randomly. Ethan’s family does this too, and as far as I’m aware, they’ve done it for a long time. His family ritual/tradition added onto mine was passed to us, and now we as parents get to continue that tradition with our children, and I almost can bet that once our littles are all grown up, they will do that with us, and I look forward to that day!

Why Are Traditions so Important?

Traditions are always occurring, in my family, in yours, and in everyone around us. They aren’t always what we would expect, but there are a couple that are. Such as fall traditions that most families participate in, but what are some not common fall traditions that families could participate in?

Uncommon fall family traditions:

• DIY-ing quirky Halloween costumes instead of buying them.
• Going on ice cream family nights/date nights instead of Hot Chocolate
• Picking pumpkins from a pumpkin patch instead of the store
• Some families do Pizza for Thanksgiving as a tradition in their family
• Trick or treating at businesses during the day
• Family pictures during the fall vs other seasons
• Attending movies at our local event center
• Going on walks outside in the brisk weather

These are some of the family traditions we participate in during the fall. Our family traditions may not look like yours, and that’s okay! Traditions are unique to each family, and should be! They are what make us who we are and how we raise our families. What we introduce to our children as traditions will hopefully be memories they cherish and someday pass along to their children and their families. If you have any fun, quirky, or uncommon fall family traditions that you participate in, I would love to hear about them. I love incorporating new ones into my family, so ideas and any other traditions would be fun to try!

“Family Traditions reveal what you value enough to repeat, and – if done with love – build warm, happy associations.”

McKenna Sanders

The Mom, Wife, Dream Life Blog

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