I’m getting soft in my old age.
Earlier this week, I was spouting off about things being hard and today it’s the total opposite. Hard, soft, limp, firm…hmm, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think I wasn’t getting any… oh wait.
Damn kids; or singular, but who’s counting.
Aside from shattering my monkey loving fantasies while simultaneously exhausting me, this baby business is making me all sentimental and sloppy. It could also be the raging hormones too, but whatever.
In any event, I’ve been doing an awful lot of thinking lately, always a dangerous proposition, specifically about traditions. Ya know, those things you do year in and year out or even weekly because tradition makes it so.
I can’t even believe I’m saying this (hello sappy), but I want to take some of the traditions my family has given me and share them with the wee lass.
For example (cue mushy music):
Friday Night Pizza: this one needs no explanation.
Sunday Morning Donuts: what can I say? I have a thing for tasty food.
The Sound of Music: every Christmas, I watch this movie with my mother. I’m hoping to bring Ave into the fold and show her a few of my favorite things, pun intended.
Speaking of the holidays, decorating the tree with a side of spiked cocoa is my happy place, and I love the idea of frosting sugar cookies annually. Granted I realize it’ll likely be a hot mess for Ave’s first few…or even ten years, and yet I’m looking forward to it.
Dance parties! Obviously.
I’m digging the fact I’ll have a permanent berry picking companion (the Hubby isn’t exactly a fan). More hands equals more fruit, right? Don’t take this from me.
Book Club: back in the day, my family would gather in the living room once a week, fireside if the weather was appropriate, and all read books together. It was lovely and helped me become the happy bookworm that I am today.
Last but not least, I’d like to do a weekly family movie night with popcorn of course, the kind you make on the stove, although I fully intend to make sure the movies we watch are way more child appropriate than the flicks my brothers and I were exposed to…hello Secretary. It was friendly, real friendly in fact, just not family friendly.
What are some of your favorite family traditions?
Raquel says
Toasted wheat bread with spats of butter melted with cinnamon-sugar spice- my mom made this most mornings before sending me off to school and on a tough day or a day when I want that childhood cozy love back- I eat toast.
Meghan says
YES! Such a childhood classic.
..and now I need some cinnamon sugar toast to start my day. 🙂
Cora says
Ah this made me feel all warm and cozy and super excited for Christmas. My mother is a big, big traditionalist, especially when it comes to Christmas things. And you know what? I’m very grateful that she is. Although I don’t see myself AS stuck to things as she is, growing up with clear and unique family traditions has given my family so much more to look back on together and feel sentimental towards. And really, it is these traditions that make us the close family that we are. I would want the exact same for my children. Those “smaller” things like friday night pizza and reading together are what Ave is going to remember most fondly about growing up.
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Meghan says
I love our Christmas traditions too. I like them better than all the presents. Decorating the tree, making scones for the neighbors and singing carols are some of favorite holiday doings.
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Katy says
Meghan, you continue to inspire me even from afar.,.and by afar you know I mean as in not in the office 8 feet away. While my wee ones are on their own (as you will learn, that term is interpreted loosely the older they get…but I wouldn’t want it any other way) I often find myself lamenting the days gone by and all those days held. Your post reminds me that I can bring back those moments when the opportunities present themselves and as the colder days and holidays arrive, there is no better time to do that. Embrace the moments!! I like this soft squishy (not literally!!) side of you. It’s amazing the emotions your child can stir…especially when you were least expecting them.
Meghan says
I miss you too. We need to get together again soon. Ave (and her momma) need their Katy fix. 🙂
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Heather Shoberg says
I love family traditions and one of my favorite things about being a parent now is getting to pass along family traditions, but also start new ones. Most of my favorite traditions revolve around the holidays, which makes me think we need more “everyday” traditions as well. We try to have every Friday be movie night, and I think that’s something I want to keep up and make happen every Friday night. I used to love that at my Dad’s house.
*Every year we each pick out a new Christmas ornament. Our tree is a mishmash of randomness and I adore it. Plus, when the kids move out on their own, I plan on giving them each the ornaments they’ve chosen over the years so they can decorate their own tree.
*Every Christmas Eve, Josh and I watch Die Hard together while we prep the last of presents and whatnot for Christmas morning.
*Christmas Day is reserved for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, skyping with family, hanging out in pajamas all day and every Christmas morning I make Gingerbread Pancakes from a recipe at a B&B I worked at many years ago.
*
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Meghan says
I love the Christmas ornament idea. I’ll definitely implement that, and our tree is mish mash too. I call it eclectic. 🙂
Diehard is fantastic. We usually spend Christmas Eve with the family, although it may all change now that we have one of our own. I’d still like to be with the family though.
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Laura @ Sprint 2 the Table says
Maybe I’m getting sappy too, but I love our traditions. Evie blasts the Charlie Brown Christmas album on repeat every December. We buy an ornament every place we visit. We collect wine corks and write on the special ones. Christmas morning brunch is the best meal in my family. watching the UGA-Tech game at Thanksgiving. I’m blaming the time of year of all the sentimental weakness.
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Meghan says
I like this sappy side of you.
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Suzy says
Did you know that I have never seen The Sound Of Music? Nope. Crazy hey? It’s been so long now that I want to keep my streak going.
Our family tradition is fighting.
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Meghan says
We do our fair share of that too. Come to Cleveland and watch Sound of Music with Ave and I. 🙂
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danielle says
this is such a beautiful and joyful post,in fact i wanted to wait until i had time to myself to actually read it with my full attention… which brings me to now, saturday. le sigh. and the dogs and other creatures are at my side but one is napping. i’ll take what i can 🙂
yes yes yes i’ve been thinking about traditions as well. i love your family traditions, i must say in another life i would like to a) come back as one of your cats, and b) be a part of your family. am i too old to be adopted? well i’ll just visit and pretend we’re related. i love food traditons, friday pizza night and donuts on the weekend sound awesome. most of our family’s traditions are around food. growing up we did dim sum sunday (or saturday) and then would follow that up with dessert and coffee, and then more eating, and just basically a whole day of food. we still do that now, and have taken miss Lulu twice. she gave it 2 baby thumbs up. for the first 12 years of my life it was just my mom, my great grandmother, my grandmother, and me. we had our own traditions. my greatgrandmother did about 90% of the cooking and every morning would make me special eggs, or i would make her special eggs. we loved our eggs. i would sit with her in the mornings and she’d tell stories while smoking her ciggs. on the weekends my mother used to take me to the store and buy up cheese scraps and meat scraps from the deli and we’d come home and make a bunch of mystery quiches, and i love quiche. about 4 times a year she made what we called ‘american casserole’ which was canned spagetti with beans and velveeta. oddly we loved it.
when she went out on dates, she’d buy us fried chicken and let me rent movies so i propose our future family does something cool when i go out with my gals.
here are some of our traditions that i think will be fun to do, with some minor tweaks 😀
driving around the neighborhoods looking at christmas lights and singing carols at the top of our lungs with windows down at midnight on christmas eve.
quiche day
movie nights – mary poppins and charade
game nights – cranium and trivial pursuits
dancing! making up dances to our favorite tunes
dumplings day – making homemade dumplings
tree decorating?
christmas crackers
chinese crepes – yum
family dim sum
breakfast
going to the mall on superbowl sunday
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Meghan says
I love these traditions. I’m always intrigued by other cultures and how they celebrate life. It’s fantastic to read these. It’s funny how so many of them revolve around food for all of us.
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Brittany says
That is one beautiful looking Friday night pie!!!
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Meghan says
Hooray for pizza!!
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Pat says
Hi Meghan, This was a wonderful post. It will be interesting to see which traditions continue on and who knows? you may create some new ones with Ave and hubby. I have fond memories of helping my mom make Christmas cookies. When my son was 5, I had this brilliant idea to make gingerbread men cookies and decorate them. By the time we got the first batch on the tray, the thrill was gone and I ended up baking and decorating all the rest on my own. After that, I bought the dough roll, cut off the slices, let my son put them on the tray, and voila, we were done! Pat
Meghan says
I sort of envision the holiday sugar cookies being a three day project. 🙂 One day where I make the dough solo, another day where we cut out the cookies together and bake them and a completely different day where we frost them. Oi, that sounds like a lot of work when you type it out. Wish me luck, and thank you for sharing your story. I love hearing other people’s traditions and tales.
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Pat says
Much smarter idea than mine!
Emma says
Omg, Friday night pizza is the best! It’s funny, because my family used to have a tradition of making it every Sunday night, but now that I live with my boyfriend, I find that we’ve switched that day to Friday instead. Somehow, it just seems more appropriate.
Hope you have a great Sunday!
Emma, http://www.martinyfood.com
Meghan says
It really doesn’t matter what day so long as once a week pizza happens. 🙂
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Kirsten says
Meghan,
Obviously we do a Friday Night Pizza here, although for the 4 years I had a kid performing the weekly Friday night marching band concert (with some athletic warm up and cool down) we swapped our pizza night to whichever night worked best for the family.
Books–one of the take homes from the early elementary school years was the day before holidays– Read In Day, and the kids were encouraged to wear PJs and bring whatever books in to school to read to promote sustained reading. When Mark was deployed during those years, and I could not deal any more, we’d have Read In Night and the kids piled into our bed and we all read together. Not read the same books–no, remember I was DONE with the parenting thing and just wanted to escape with a book. So we all curled up together and read our own books. Happy memories of that one, and these days when we kick the kids off their computers we’re likely all to be in the living room reading together. Another thing on books–when Ave learns how to read, don’t stop reading to her. Emma was in I think 2nd grade, and a fine reader for her age, when Mark started reading the Little House on the Prairie series to her. Just a chapter a night or so. They enjoyed the time together, and Erik often listened in. Driving the sites last year was also pretty cool if you’re looking for a road trip.
One of the cool things of parenting is getting to make your own traditions!
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Meghan says
Read In Days, I like the sound of that. That’s what our family reading hour was too, although it was in the living room and we wore whatever clothes we happened to have on at the time. I like the chapter a night idea. My nephew is reading Harry Potter with his mom and dad even though he’s capable of reading on his own. Same concept, and I hope to do it with Ave.
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Sarah says
I feel like this is the time of year where all the traditions come out to play. Zach and I were just gathering the supplies today for our annual pumpkin carving showdown and I went out for a run with my dad to start training for our family turkey trot and don’t even get me started on the Christmas cookies… it’s such a gigantic mess of a day with two adults doing it I can only imagine little fingers in the frosting 🙂
I love that you’re keeping so many of your traditions alive by sharing them with Ave and I’m sure you’ll keep building more as she gets older too.
Meghan says
I like the sound of this pumpkin carving showdown. I may have to implement it when Ave can wield a knife.
Meghan recently posted…WIR: Babies and Food (Not To Be Confused with Food Babies) (#53)
Jen @ Chase the Red Grape says
Oh I absolutely love traditions! There is something so warm, cosy and comforting about them 🙂
My favourites include open our Christmas stockings in our pjs first thing on christmas morning, having iced coffes after crossfit on a Friday and starting Sunday morning with some pancakes whilst reading the newspaper.
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Meghan says
Your traditions sounds lovely too. I especially like pancake Sunday.
Meghan recently posted…WIR: Babies and Food (Not To Be Confused with Food Babies) (#53)
Joyce @ The Hungry Caterpillar says
Daaawwww. This is sweet. One of my favorites is definitely decorating the Christmas tree. For a while my mom tried to get an artificial tree, and I was like, nope. I always let my mom put the angel her mom made on top.
On Saturdays when mom and dad get home from their bike rides, they have eggs and brunch. I assume they still do that, even though I’m not around.
I wonder if there’s a distinction between a tradition and a habit. We definitely have a lot of habits I wouldn’t necessarily consider traditions. Oh, well.
Thanks for this fun post!
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Meghan says
I think habits can easily turn into traditions. I love the sound of a Saturday bike ride followed by brunch.
Meghan recently posted…WIR: Babies and Food (Not To Be Confused with Food Babies) (#53)
Amanda @ .running with spoons. says
A lot of my family’s traditions revolve around the holidays, but we DO do dinner together every Sunday. And then we’ll usually chill and watch movies or something. Game nights used to be a thing when I was younger, and that’s one that I seriously miss. I freaking love board games, but no one ever wants to play with me
OH! You know what you should do?! Puzzles with Ave! Although that one might require her to be a little bit older. Unless you don’t mind putting together those 25 piece puzzles 😉
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Meghan says
I love board games too. I wonder if we can find some two man games to play when you’re here.
I’m definitely teaching Ave about puzzles. Time will tell is she has a knack for them.
Meghan recently posted…WIR: Babies and Food (Not To Be Confused with Food Babies) (#53)
Chelsea A says
I love the idea of your family’s book club! It always makes me sad when I hear kids say they don’t like to read… but being a reading role model for kids is such a great way to pass it onto them. 🙂
One of my favourite family traditions was building a gingerbread house every December with my family when I was a kid. My parents even made their own templates so that we could make the gingerbread house look exactly like our house. Not going to lie though, I’m pretty sure my favourite part was getting to nibble on all the candy as we decorated it.
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Meghan says
A gingerbread house would be fantastic. I love this idea!!
Pat says
Here’s another great story. One of the mom’s held a huge gingerbread house building event at her house. Everyone brought their pre-built gingerbread house and one item to be used for decorating. For example, a bag of M&M’s, licorice, gummies, etc. Then we all share the decorations to decorate our individual houses. The hostess supplied all the frosting. You have no idea. That woman should have been voted Mother of the Year. Frosting everywhere. It was a blast though as long as someone else was hosting. LOL
Meghan says
Maybe I can bring it up at the lactation support group and see if someone else will host. 🙂
Juli @1000lovelythings says
I love this. Stefan and I form our own little traditions now but I really don’t think my family had any real traditions growing up. I mean Christmas happened in a certain way every year but it never felt ingrained. I could easily switch things up without a second thought.
My in-laws on the other hand always had a lot of family traditions and to be honest I have a hard time joining them in this now. It feels odd to me. Well most things BUT the annual Narnia family gatherings. I love those!
I love the idea of pizza night and book club!
Also we bake and decorate sugar cookies with the kids every year. It’s the ultimate anti-OCD training for me! Those cookies won’t be pretty or edible anymore haha! But the kids love it and that’s all that matters.
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Arman @ thebigmansworld says
Dude, this is what I need…traditions! I don’t think there ever were self made/family made ones- besides the holidays! Ave is fortunate to have all these exciting ones to experience…especially the pizza one!
I remember your old dance party video with the family 😀
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Meghan says
I love that family dance party video. I had almost forgotten about it. See, it’s in our DNA to just dance it out. 🙂