Make Everyday Occasions Special
Have family dates, special dinners, “Love Days,” do projects together, view family pictures, videos, or slides on a regular basis.
Ask conversational questions at dinner, bedtime, on birthdays, during family meetings or devotions, and in the car. (See https://celebrationsandtraditions.com/special-celebrations/cram/ for more information and resources on conversational questions.)
Create and Keep Important Memories and Traditions
Create a personal or family motto, scripture, prayer, banner, crest, song, or dance.
Name your home? (car?) Print, frame, and display your motto, name, or prayer.
Maintain a monthly display shelf or bulletin board with family mementos, awards, & pictures.
As soon as your children can write their names, each year on their birthday have them record their signatures on a designated page in their baby book.
Set aside a regular time to write notes of appreciation, sympathy, congratulations, birthday or anniversary wishes, and encouragement. Children can decorate cards with stickers and arts & crafts supplies.
Celebrate blessings & accomplishments~ This picture is from a family’s celebration of dad’s hitting the 2000 mile mark in his bike-riding one summer.
A fun idea for displaying family pictures:
I still remember a Scripture that was written on a 3-demensional plaster plaque in my home growing up. Do you have framed calligraphy or a simple refrigerator magnet with a favorite verse.
Here’s a photo I saw on a friend’s Facebook page that I think could inspire some great ideas! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151084513795390&set=a.10150276056280390.377737.322157245389&type=1
Here are two mini-murals Jack painted:
Put Faith & Family into your Fun
Choose a blessing to pray when family members leave home for extended times. Ex: “May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace. The LORD will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever.” (From Numbers 6 & Psalm 121)
Make Every Day of the Week Special
Ideas for Sunday Traditions:
Start the day with a simple, but special Sunday breakfast~ smoothies, cinnamon rolls, toaster waffles with fresh fruit, etc.
Meet someone new at church and invite them out or home for lunch.
Host a once a month Sunday night potluck with your family, friends, neighbors, or small group.
People used to take Sunday afternoon drives~ Save gas and take Sunday afternoon bike rides.
Before bedtime, gather with your family or housemates to look back on the last week and write down things that happened for which you’re thankful, then pray about the challenges of the upcoming week.
Monday is most people’s least favorite day of the week~ How about starting a simple tradition to help you look forward to Mondays? Here are a few ideas:
Have meals prepared ahead of time that can be just heated up on Monday nights.
Have dessert after lunch or dinner on Mondays.
Wear one of your favorite articles of clothing or jewelry every Monday.
Create a special playlist of your most joyful, inspiring, favorite music to listen to during your Monday commutes or walks.
Call, e-mail, or text an old friend every Monday. (You might want to ask/talk/pray about what’s happening in the upcoming week.)
Do you have a favorite Friday/End of the Week tradition?
Consider having the same dinner every week, such as pizza, fish, or Chinese carry-out. Make it a date night, family game, or friends’ movie night… We read a blog by one family that makes every Friday “Camp Out Night.” They make cookies and popcorn, get a fire going, and watch movies until the kids fall asleep in their sleeping bags in front of the fireplace. (No mention about whether or not the parents also sleep on the floor. :~))
Make Every Month Special
Celebrate the first day of each month at dinner by enjoying a seasonal decoration or food, talking about what you’re looking forward to during that month, planning for special holidays or events coming up, or playing a trivia game about historical events from that month.
Here are some websites to help you gather info for trivia games:
http://suite101.com/a/homeschooling-history-monthly-timelines-historical-events
http://www.historyplace.com/specials/calendar/
http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/Famous-August-Events-86787.html
http://inventors.about.com/od/todayinhistory/Today_In_History.htm
(You can also search Wikipedia by month.)
MORE!
Revise games such as Taboo, Scattergories, & Pictionary to incorporate personal topics & clues.
Illustrate or reenact Bible stories or past family experiences.
Interview friends and family members on a frequent basis. Record the interviews.
If you and your family or friends have a favorite TV show, make watching it together an anticipated regular time with a special snack that can become a tradition.
Adult siblings: Set aside time to get together occasionally without spouses or children. Reminisce about your childhood and strengthen your sister/brother bonds.
Hints for Involving Extended Family & Friends
Don’t get discouraged if people are not initially excited about structure.
Schedule to meet with whoever is willing to plan for a holiday or event.
Bring books or lists of ideas to share ~ Ask others to also bring resources.
Try one or two things at a time– Make sure they’re fun, especially to start.
Be prepared– Have on hand a game, liturgy, craft materials, etc. and then just ask if anyone is interested in trying it.
Start with activities for children, adults will hopefully join in.
Host the gathering if possible– present an activity which is one of your family’s traditions and invite your guests to participate in it, then ask them tell you all about one of their traditions afterward.
Team up with someone who shares your interest to pray about it together.
Ask kids or the youngest adults to plan and lead an activity (or whichever person who would most likely be accepted to take the lead).
When Your Tradition No Longer Works
If you must let go of a tradition, consider finding a special way to do it. Make your last time a very special celebration. For instance if your family’s tradition was to take your children to zoo on the last day of school each year and you sense that the kids are starting to lose interest, declare that this year will be the last time. Because of that, it will be a Super Duper Deluxe Zoo Trip. The children can buy overpriced snacks or see the dolphin show AND ride the train—and of course a choosing a special souvenir would be appropriate. You could also make a scrapbook with pictures and written memories of all the times you went.
When a tradition outlives its fun, feasibility, or fulfillment factor, another option is choose a new tradition to which you can transition. For the first ten years of our children’s lives, we had traditional birthday parties with games and activities for them. Each one had a theme based on their interests at the time. I always created a homemade decorated cake, Jack put on a puppet show, and grandma made our daughter a new dress. After the age of ten, we took them to dinner at the restaurant of their choice and invited them to plan their own party for their friends. (Our son quickly established the tradition of stir-fry food every year.)
Sometimes traditions are lost or have to be changed because of unhappy circumstances. In those cases, it is even more important to make sure that new traditions are prayerfully and carefully chosen. You may want find a meaningful way to remember and honor a lost loved-one or celebrate past blessings. The new tradition should not necessarily be a direct replacement for the old one; in fact it may be very different. Consider your current needs and hopes for future. Establishing a new tradition is a way to acknowledge acceptance of your changed circumstances and an opportunity to enhance the new situation.
“Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Philippians 2:4
When we plan celebrations and create traditions, it is important to think about the needs and desires of our family members and friends.
Do you prefer small low key celebrations, but know that your best friend would love a big party to celebrate a milestone birthday?
Do you love Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, but your spouse considers them “Hallmark Holidays” that exist primarily for commercial purposes?
As we have observed (and experienced) people’s disappointment with spouses, parents or children, and friends who failed to fulfill their hopes or expectations, we have been impressed with how easy it is for us to make choices according to what we like and what meets our needs. That’s good… Except when it does not meet the needs of our family members or friends. To build and sustain healthy relationships, we need to understand and respond to the interests of others.
Some practical ways to do this are:
• Think about past experiences with the important people in your life: When have you seen them excited, bursting with joy, supremely contented? What events do they still talk about years after they happened? Is there anything about which they consistently drop hints or even nag?
• Ask questions:
What are your favorite ways to celebrate?
How do you like to have fun?
What is your favorite holiday?
What kind of gifts do you most prefer~ homemade, a special luxury, practical, a total surprise, or something off your wish list?
What activity do you wish we did more often?
In your opinion, what is our family’s most important tradition?
Can you describe your “dream” birthday (or anniversary, holiday, date, celebration)?
• Read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. (The five are: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.) Invite your spouse/family member/friend to take the Love Language Assessment on 5lovelanguages.com/assessments/love/
• Practice sacrificial love. What do you hate doing~ Attending your spouse’s extended family events? Watching baseball games? (Or chick flicks?) Playing Monopoly on family game nights? (That is me!) Traveling? Hosting parties? Shopping for the “perfect” card or gift? Do it anyway! When you do something out of love rather than inclination, it can be even more meaningful to the one you are honoring.
Here’s an example from my personal experience:
My (Kathy’s) mother loves parties, and to her, a real party MUST include dinner. (And we know that sandwiches or appetizers do NOT constitute dinner for mom.) For an anniversary or birthday celebration, my sisters would choose to go with their spouses to a quiet restaurant or enjoy a getaway at a hotel, but we know that our mom is different. She feels happiest and most honored when her children, grandchildren, in-laws, nieces & nephews, and friends are gathered together (and dinner is served). So we invite and cook! (See https://celebrationsandtraditions.com/special-celebrations/birthdays/ for a description and a few pictures of the party we planned for her 80th birthday.)
On the other hand, I don’t care so much about food. I really appreciate ambience~ a warm and beautiful setting. To celebrate our engagement many years ago, Jack took me to a gourmet restaurant recommended by friends. The meal was excellent, but I found the atmosphere to be cold and sterile. We laugh about it now, but we also make sure that if we go out for an anniversary dinner, the restaurant has a romantic atmosphere AND good food. (Jack’s the family cook and does fully appreciate a great meal!)
We have an old family friend who prefers to give according to his agenda. Bill (name changed to protect the guilty) is often very loving and generous, but he prefers to act on his terms, rather than others’ expectations. Bill does not just disdain “Hallmark Holidays”—birthdays are not a priority… even his wife Susan’s. On some birthdays he takes Susan out and gives her very thoughtful gifts, but on others he forgets. Deliberately. Or he even asks her to help him with a chore he’s focused on. Bill’s wife is very thoughtful in her observance of her loved ones birthdays, but never knows whether or not she will be celebrated. Although Susan has tried to let go of any expectations and accept Bill as he is, you can guess that a choice to consistently honor her birthday would enhance her happiness and their relationship.
Is there an area of your life where you are like Bill? Where you live by the assumption that if it’s not important to you, it’s not important, period? Ask your spouse, parent, child, or close friend~ and the Holy Spirit~ to reveal to you anything they care about that you may have been oblivious to or dismissive of. Then find ways to lovingly and joyfully show that you do care. You care because they care and you care about them. We are convinced of the importance of this underlying principle for all of the celebrations & traditions we plan.