Does your family have traditions? One of my kids just asked me if we have family traditions, and I drew a blank. What are YOUR family traditions?

one I can think of right now - for any body's birthday, we wake the person up with The Beatles Birthday Song.

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Bevogal

I received a Red Plate at a wedding shower so we have started using it. Here's more info:
THE RED PLATE

It was a time honored tradition among early American families
that when someone deserved special praise or attention they were served dinner on The Red Plate.
The Red Plate is the perfect way to acknowledge a family member's special triumphs.
When The Red Plate is used, any meal becomes a celebration, honoring that special person, event or deed.

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Shelley
blue5203@aol.com

~Mom to Andy-11/3/05 and Ryan-7/31/08~

When our kids were small we didn't like to get sitters, and didn't always have the money for a nice dinner out for Valentines Day. So, we started a tradition of eating at home with the kids. We would buy steak and shrimp and have other special favorites for dinner. We would set the table with candles etc. and we all exchanged cards and usually a small gift. We would put the cards on each others plates and open them before we ate. We also would buy sparkling cider and use wine glasses. It was a fabulous evening, the kids were always on their best behaviour!! I miss those little kids.................

Our main (daily) tradition:
We eat all meals together at the table, i.e. no one eats in their room or in front of TV. My granny taught me that a family that eats together, stays together.

Easter: My mom STILL gets me a stuffed animal for Easter and I get my kids one every year as well.

Birthdays are celebrated together by having the birthday person's favorite meal.

Christmas/Thanksgiving traditions:
Thanksgiving: Have lunch with granny and then go to my mom's for dinner and hang out.
Day after Thanksgiving: Me and the kids put up our christmas tree.

Christmas Eve: My family travels to my mothers and we have lunch together, gifts, etc. Then it's to my husband's mother's house for dinner. The remainder of the evening, we go home and spend time together.

Christmas Day: Everyone is up early I prepare breakfast, kids play, etc. We go to my husband's mother's house, we open gifts and eat a little more, lol. Then it's back home to play and get ready to go to my granny's house, where the entire family has lunch and do gifts and then we just spend lots of time together. Then, it's back to my house, where we have inlaws, grandparents, etc come to see what Santa brought

I am sure that there are others. I will post as soon as they come to mind, lol.

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email is moserlara@yahoo.com

Well, ours are usually around holidays.
Christmas, we cut down our tree as a family.
We always have T'Giving and Xmas dinner at our house, and anybody is invited to come to our house (once we had kids we decided instead of deciding where we would go or splitting days up into 4 different houses, we would make OUR house OUR holiday destination only). We always try to invite either singles or new arrivals to our house on these days also.
Summer camping always (not my favorite because I am still the one doing all the work that I do at home, only in a dirtier environment...but, it IS a tradition now).

As our kids are both in High School now (on a Freshman and the other a Senior), we don't have much longer to enjoy all of this with all of us together.....and so far we have been lucky enough that we have not had either kid mutiny yet....fingers crossed!

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"Well-Behaved Women SELDOM make history."Laurel Thatcher Ulrich


"Yesterday is but a vision, and tomorrow is only a dream. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a dream of hope." Anonymous

"Your candle does not lose it's light by lighting another candle" Generosity

Have the courage to be yourself.

Only tradtion that me and the DH have is on Christmas. We started it the year we got married. We open our presents in bed. After that's done, I'll start dinner (usually Prime Rib) and while that's cooking we have some sort of pastry for breakfast. After dinner is done, we go for a drive and look at the decorations.

Other then that we don't have any others. Family is spread out in different states so we don't do much with them.

We go to cec for the kids bdays every year. We also go to a certain zoo & have a special day with oldest dd every year before she goes to her dads house for the summer. For xmas we all wake up early & open presents & then play all day with them. For easter we go to my moms house every year.

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mom of 3 greats girls

We spend Christmas Eve together with the entire family (about 20 of us), we always have a good time. We also go up to camp and spend the fouth of July together too. We just finished up with one of our family traditions.....getting hay in. My sister in law who lives next door to us has five horses and for years we have helped her get all 850 bails of hay up in the loft of their barn. Its very hard work, and sometimes the loft tends to be a hot...but its a good feeling knowing the horses will be all set for the winter. When we see the hay wagons pulling into their yard, at first we dread it, but it really has become a family tradition and we know its a job that needs to be done. I just wish it wouldn't always come on the hottest day of the year!!!

Once we had kids, it was too hard to travel for Christmas (none of our family lives in our town). So we have Chrismtas at home. We start the weekend after Thanksgiving and go "Christmas Tree Hunting" and cut our own tree. We have hot cocoa after we cut it and take all sorts of pictures. Chrsitmas Eve, we take a drive to look at all of the nice decorations. Christmas day is filled with fun and laughter. We wake up and open presents, have cinnamon rolls and fruit then play til lunch. Lunch is usually left-overs (so I am not in the kitchen all day- it is turkey leftovers form Christmas Eve). Dinner is steak and lobster. This started when we wanted something special for dinenr and couldn't afford lobster any other time in the year...it was our treat for the year.

During the week of New Year's, we travel to my FIL who always has lots of snow. We go sledding with my in-laws and any other borther and sister in-laws and their kids who come over.

Summer time, we always camp at least twice. Once at the beach and usually once in the forest.

We have lots of other fun traditions that we do, but these are the ones that come to mind first.

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Join the Relay for Life

We use the Red Plate thing too. Ours is not red but black and white checked. We live in Indianapolis so black and white checks seemed appropriate!

My family did this and I started it when I got married 18 years ago.

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Nutella,....
proving some of the best things in life come in a jar.

We have the inlaws over for Easter. My family over at Thanksgiving. Christmas Eve is at the inlaws, Christmas Day at my parents. Every year, same thing.

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I've never lied to you. I've always told you some version the of truth.

In my opinion, we don't have a lot of family traditions. But some we do have are :

We all go to one baseball game each year.

We all go to the local amusement park once a year.

Thanksgiving is at our house. Everyone is welcome to come here and enjoy the feast. But we won't leave the house on that day (like the other poster).

Christmas dinner/gift exchange is at my parents house. DH's family is welcome to go there also, and MIL always shows up. It makes for a fun time, with our son being able to spend the day with his grandma and my parents (DH's parents are divorced and his dad lives in a different state).

This year we are also going to a concert in a local city. It is DS's first real concert, and we are all kind of jazzed (going to see Randy Travis - I don't really like country, but he is DH's favorite singer).