I’m a stay-at-home mom turned home design and DIY expert. I've discovered the thrill of creating a beautiful, functional home, and I'm here to inspire and teach you to do the same
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I’ve been on a mission, you guys. My husband and I have two little girls, an almost 3 year old and 1 year old who are growing up WAAAAY faster than they have any business doing. As a result, we’ve been having a lot of discussions lately in regards to what family traditions we want to implement in our family early on. So that got me thinking about some of the things my family did and what my husband’s did, and while they did pretty well I wanted to get a LOT of input so we could have more ideas to choose from. So what’s my mission, you ask? I have been rounding up some of the most exciting, fun, out-of-the-box family tradition ideas for you to start implementing in your family! Enjoy!
At dinner, each person writes what they love about each person on paper hearts and puts it on their plate. Each member reads out loud all the valentines they received. To add to the fun, don’t put your name on it. Each person has to guess who it’s from!
Parents go to dinner on a day that’s less crowded and less expensive
Make gutter Sundaes – re-purpose an old rain gutter (Or DIY your own!) wash it and fill it up with all kinds of different scoops of ice cream, bananas, and all the Sundae toppings. Give everyone a spoon and go to town!
Halloween themed mystery dinner: Come up with clever spooky names for different foods, put in on a menu, and kids have to order their dinner from that menu
December 25th – Christmas
Christmas day root beer tasting/rating
Buy a baby Christmas tree still in the pot to decorate for tiny living spaces, then plant on family property to have your very own Christmas tree to cut down years later
Make a family Holiday bucket list at the beginning of the month
Each kid gets to unwrap new pajamas on Christmas eve
Christmas Eve box – rather than each kid unwrapping a gift the night before, a Christmas Eve box is filled with snacks, drink mixes, story books or movies, new pajamas or slippers, or a new board game for the family, wrapped, and then opened together.
Snowflake cutout competition. Whoever makes the best one gets to be served a cup of hot chocolate, the rest have to make their own!
Sometime during the Christmas season, pile everyone into the living room with lots of blankets for a campout near the Christmas tree.
Light and release Chinese lanterns if legal in
your area
Watch Kung Fu Panda, Mulan, or any Chinese movie
29th of every month
Exotic dinner night. Make a meal from a different country that you’ve never tried making before. (Adapted from the Argentine tradition of making homemade Gnocchi’s every 29th.)
Half-Anniversary Family Holiday
On the Halfway mark for your Anniversary, have a
family holiday with a fancy candlelit dinner, games, or even a family vacation.
Parent-daughter and son Dates
Take each child out individually on a
father/daughter, father/son or mother/daughter, mother/son dates or even with
both parents monthly or bi-monthly
Use flour and a template to make “bunny tracks”. Can be used to lead the way to Easter baskets for smaller children
Adult Easter egg hunt: Hide eggs in very tricky places, and instead of candy (or in addition to) fill them with money, gift certificates, small gifts like chapstick or jewelry, or funny family pictures. You can also fill each egg with various pictures of animals or shapes, and the person that finds the most eggs with pictures of whatever you choose, gets a prize.
Golden egg: whoever finds the Golden egg gets a special prize and gets to tell the resurrection story of Jesus’ Atonement and resurrection at dinnertime.
Make and deliver cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate or another tasty treat to friends and family
Winter Solstice
Indoor Snowball fight with marshmallows or a
real one outside if you have snow!
Candlelight dinner with all other lights in the
house turned off
When a family member has passed away
Wherever they are, siblings all facetime/skype/Marco
Polo and eat that person’s favorite food or dessert on their birthday and talk
about favorite memories of that person
Every night during family dinner
Each person tells about something that happened
that was good that day, and something that was bad.
Can be called Sads & Glads, Happy &
Crappy, Highs & Lows, Pit & Peak, Sweet & Sour
Sundays
Family Dinners using fancy china
Half-birthdays
Cut everything in Half: Half a birthday cake, make a birthday card and cut it in half
Like valentines, but on any day of the year, just because
Candlelit dinner
Toddlers get to blow out candles after food is finished
Small gift or flowers
Birthdays
Breakfast Pancakes with sprinkles or Chocolate chips
Birthday person picks menu for dinner
Make “King of the day” plate. Birthday person gets to eat off that special plate for meals. (I made my own, tutorial coming soon! Or you can buy some here)
Birthday person gets to sit on a chair on the table (Be careful!) so they can sit higher than everyone else while they eat.
Donuts for breakfast
Everyone says nice things about the birthday person during dinner
Mom tells the birth story during dinner
Balloons dropped on their bed to wake them up in the morning
Birthday person gets to take a big bite out of the cake before candles are lit and blown out
Birthday person doesn’t have to do chores that day
I hope you get as much joy out of reading these ideas as I did! We have already started to implement a few of them, and I can’t wait until my girls get old enough to do even more! I would like to know, though, what family traditions do you have that I can add to my list??
Here are some more posts you might like! Be sure to check them out!