This Wednesday: Tips for starting a family holiday tradition.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Tips...for starting a family holiday tradition.

Starting a family tradition sounds like an oxymoron, right? But traditions have to start somewhere.

Studies show that traditions are quite important to family happiness. In fact, family rituals encourage children's social development and boost feelings of family cohesiveness by 17%. They help provide connection and predictability, which people--especially children--crave. Without traditions, holidays don't feel much different from ordinary life. And they're a lot of fun.

So how do you start a family holiday tradition?

1. As with all things in life, GET ENOUGH SLEEP and EXERCISE REGULARLY. Traditions take energy. They commit you to mailing out those Valentine's cards or making homemade ice cream for the Fourth of July. If you're exhausted all the time, these tasks will be a burden instead of a joy.

2. Don't fight your natural inclinations. Although participating in the annual Thanksgiving cancer walk-a-thon sounds like a great yearly tradition, if you're a family of couch potatoes, you probably won't stick with it. Maybe the whole family could watch The Sound of Music on Thanksgiving night instead.

3. Traditions are more meaningful if everyone participates. But you can't just dole out chores and expect people to help cheerfully. Think about what each person likes to do: cook a signature dish, put up decorations, pick the music, run errands, deal with the grill or fireplace.

4. It's wonderful to carry traditions through generations, but don't be too upset if you can't keep up every element. For years, I insisted that we get a ceiling-high fresh Christmas tree, because "It's not Christmas without a real tree!" When I was growing up, buying the tree was a key part of the holiday, and I couldn't let go of that. Finally, I realized that it just doesn't make sense for my family now. We always go for a long Christmas visit to Kansas City, where my mother puts up two or three amazingly gorgeous trees--one decorated with nothing but Santas Claus ornaments. We didn't get to enjoy our New York tree much, and it was a huge hassle. So now we just put up a lot of easy-to-handle decorations, and the "real tree" is part of what makes it fun to go to Kansas City.

5. If you're starting a new tradition, consider how it plays into family dynamics. You can't just announce, "The whole family is going to have Thanksgiving at our house from now on! It's no trouble at all!" and then get upset if people don't cooperate. Who hosts, who cooks (and what they cook), who cleans, who travels, and how in-laws get a turn are all loaded questions. Consequently, you may want to...

6. Consider under-celebrated holidays. Maybe you can come up with a fun tradition for Columbus Day. And Groundhog Day is ripe for a larger vision.

7. Don't load up a tradition with too many moving pieces. Our Halloween has exploded into: lots of Halloween decorations around the apartment; a carved jack-o-lantern; the decoration of a gingerbread haunted-house; costumes, of course; an official Halloween photo in a Halloween frame, for us and the grandparents; a Halloween party, complete with sandwiches cut into Halloween shapes, followed by trick-or-treating. Enough.

8.Children love it when everything stays the same, so try to keep as much consistency as possible--i.e., don't mess with the sweet potato recipe. My sister and I still enforce the elaborate Christmas-morning routine that we developed decades ago.

Comments

[Monica Ricci]

Gretchen, I love holiday traditions, but I'm also a big fan of bucking tradition when it becomes impractical or tired. Case in point... I've been Christmas tree-free since 1985 and I absolutely love it. I don't miss the tree at all, and as you pointed out, you can always enjoy the beautiful trees that everyone else puts up, so you don't really need one of your own. (At least I don't!)

My husband puts up a Dickens Village each Christmas, and I have a few decorations that I like to display around the house. I keep it simple, and and because it's simple, I enjoy doing it as opposed to making it a huge production that I'll eventually dread.
The holidays are supposed to be a time you love -- not a time to be all stressed out and bogged down with things you consider a chore. ~Monica

[Sophie]

Children love it when everything stays the same...

...and then there are my children, 9 and 12, both card-carrying members of the "Can't we do something new?" Brigade.

"But you *like* eating dinner by candlelight."
"Yeah, but it makes Valentine's Day too predictable. Can we skip the candles just this once?"
"But you *like* toasted marshmallows."
"Not when every 4th of July it's the same old dessert...Allison's family has deep-fat-fried Twinkies, why can't we?"
"But you *love* Grandma's pound cake."
"I know, I know, but she makes it every Christmas. Can't we have another kind? Like Sara Lee?"

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yes, picking decorations that make a big visual impact but are easy to put up, take down, and store goes a long way to making a holiday festive. It's fun if you dread all the work you're going to have to do.

Zoikes, wanting something new instead of the cranberry sauce recipe from 1956! Maybe that could be its own kind of tradition: the tradition of re-inventing the perfect way to celebrate the day.

[Sophie]

Thinking this over: what my daughters want in their holiday celebrations is not so much variety for its own sake, as to be able to do whatever appeals to their (current) tastes or whatever their (current) best friends are doing. Hence the desire to eat the same dessert that beloved Allison's family eats on the 4th of July. A first-grade friend told my younger daughter that leaving out a sandwich for Santa instead of cookies-and-milk was "weird" and she's balked at it ever since. And both of them are madly envious of friends whose mothers buy cakes, pies, and cookies since we rarely have those sorts of sweets, and when we do we make them. They like Grandma's poundcake, but Grandma will never never have the glamour and allure of Sara Lee - and they think Christmas is a good time to ask. And tradition be damned.

[ming]

I am a sucker for family traditions, but its hard to do when my inlaws and my parents always want us at there houses for the holidays. You know thanksgiving at on and christmas at the other. I Have even found myself saying the kids are sick or my husband or i are sick just so we can stay home. It wouldnt be so bad except both of them live about 2and a half hours away . Oh well I guess I just have to make the best of it.

[Gerry Stephens]

I thought I'd share my family tradition and the items in this article that I found particularly usefull.

The Formation of a Family Tradition
Stephens Christmas
Martin Luther King Day 2008 and on……

Definition:
tra•di•tion (trə-dĭsh'ən) n.
A time-honored practice or set of such practices.

"tradition." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 20 Jan. 2007.

Approach:
The longevity of our family tradition will be determined by how well we plan. A tradition should be:

• Simple
• Consistent
• Natural
• Unobtrusive

Dr. Phil’s book Family First1 and Gretchen Rubin’s “This Wednesday: Tips for starting a family holiday tradition.”2 articles break down successful traditions. It is no surprise that traditions should be simple and consistent. Gretchen puts it best when she writes, “Don't load up a tradition with too many moving pieces.” I like it when put, “Keep it SIMPLE, STUPID.” While consistency is obviously a key element of tradition as per its very definition, the benefit of consistency is not so apparent. Dr. Phil and Gretchen both stress the benefit of consistency in the lives of our children. Consistency is a child’s security blanket. It is that part of family life that is different from the real world. Let’s not take for granted that in consistently providing food, shelter and love for our children, we bring a child into the security of the home when the real world dishes out its sometimes harsh lessons.
A tradition should also be natural. If our family is inherently challenged at endurance sports, we shouldn’t sign up to run a marathon. Taken a step further, a tradition that is unnatural becomes uncomfortable and in the long run will not be passed down to future generations and may not even endure the current generation. We must not deviate too far from our “Comfort Zone.”
A tradition must be unobtrusive. Family dynamics will play an increasing role in family gatherings. In order for this family tradition to succeed, the scheduling of it must be such that it does not create inequality or conflict between the schedules of the in-laws. As the date and events of this tradition will be consistent, this problem should easily be avoided.

1. McGraw, Dr. Phil. Family First: Your Step-by-Step Plan for Creating a Phenomenal Family. New York: Free Press, 2005.
2. The Happiness Project. October 25.

The Tradition:

When?
Martin Luther King Day as it is often a day off of work near the holiday season and coincidentally close to Glenn W. Stephens’s birthday whom is the visionary behind this holiday.

Where?
At the oldest relative’s house that has the capabilities of housing the family. As this is a vision that started with Glenn Stephens, it will be held at his house and then the house of the oldest surviving predecessor that meets the requirements as stated above.

How?
The Selection of the Country
The country shall be the host nation of the Summer & Winter Olympics. As part of this tradition is to learn more about another nation’s culture, synchronizing the two will further expand the experience. In years when the Olympic games are not held, the celebratory culture will follow the countries/regions/periods in the order that we have celebrated to date:

1974 France
1975 Latin America
1976 Colonial America
1977 Eastern Europe/Slavic (Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia and/or Kosovo
1978 Pennsylvania Dutch
1979 Southwest Asia (India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kirghizstan, Tajikistan and/or Azerbaijan
1980 Southeast Asia (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and/or Philippines)
1981 Hawaiian/Polynesian/Oceania (Guam, Fiji, Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, Marianas, Micronesia and/or Malaysia)
1982 Local Customs (San Diego or the current location of the family)
1983 British (Britain, Australia, New Zealand and/or Canada)
1984 Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Greenland and/or Faeroese)
1985 Iberian (Spain, Portugal, Andorra and/or Catalan)
1986 Oriental (China, Japan, Korea and/or Mongolia)
1987 Middle East (Turkey, Iran, Arabian, Jewish and/or Armenian)
1988 Italy
1989 Russia
1990 Germany
1991 Greece
1992 Caribbean
1993 Celtic (Irish, Welsh, Scotland and/or the Channel Islands)
1994 Africa

Suggested diversions may be countries of significant current events, countries currently at war, countries in the media and/or cultures of friends and family that can be celebrated with the help of a native.

The Event
1. Begins with the reading of any response that may have been received from step 2 below of the previous year.
2. Break up into family groups and research:
a. The way the celebrated culture celebrates Christmas*
b. The Christmas story as told by that culture (i.e. what are the origins or history of Santa Clause)*
c. The general profile of the culture
d. How to say “Merry Christmas” in the major language of the culture
*Should the selected culture/country/region not celebrate Christmas, the above should be done in an effort to learn about the major holiday of that culture (i.e. Bhutan is the only official Buddhist nation in the world. Christmas is not celebrated there. In fact, Bhutan is largely closed to Christianity and is one of the harshest persecutors of Christians. In Bhutan Nirvana Day is one of their biggest holidays.)
3. Eat the foods of that culture
4. Send greetings to the country for next year

The History

This tradition has been ongoing since 1974. It began as an immersion into various cultures. Greetings were sent out to the embassy of the selected country well in advance of the family get together. The culture was then researched in advance. The culture was then infused into our traditional Christmas celebration. The flag of the celebrated country was placed in the Christmas tree. The house was in part decorated according to the customs of the selected country. We listened to Christmas Carrols as sung by that country. At the family get together, food was the main focus. We made diner and the desserts of the region.

A record of the proceedings from 1974 to 1991 exists in the William A. Stephens History of Christmas which is available in the Stephens Historical Library.

Stephens “China” Christmas
A Stephens Family Tradition
Martin Luther Kind Day 2008

4:00 Opening Ceremonies and the reading of the Chinese Ambassador’s response.
4:15 Break up into small groups using any available laptops, encyclopedias and/or materials sent from the Chinese Ambassador to research:
a. The way the celebrated culture celebrates Christmas
b. The Christmas story as told by that culture (i.e. what are the origins or history of Santa Clause)
c. The general profile of the culture
d. How to say “Merry Christmas” in the major language of the culture
4:45 Presentation of our findings
5:30 Dinner
6:00 Signing of the card to the French Embassy

[Patrick Dieter]

Our family has evolved a tradition over the last few years for the Christmas season. We are spread pretty evenly over the North American Continent, so email, snail mail and phone is our main means of communication.

The truth about Christmas presents is that they rarely turn out to be something the recipient actually wants or needs. Then they become either an uncomfortable social expectation (Be sure to wear the tie that Uncle Ethelbert gave you!" or at its worst, more junk to find a place for in the clutter, but that you'd be embarrassed to get rid of.

We still do presents for all the children in the family but between the adults, we donate to various charities in each others' names and send the recipient a card describing what sort of giving or foundation we participated in. Now, every Christmas when we open our mail there are gifts that bring tears of gratitude to everyone in the family, and leave us thankful for what we have rather than stressing over having too many things we don't want. Thanks for your gift of good news every day, Gretchen!!

[ScotlandFellow]

These are some great suggestions, and it's very important for families to find a way to maintain their own traditions annually, as these are the kind of events that will be remembered by children long into the future.

[KC]

Excellent, now I don't feel so bad for always serving the same dishes for Christmas and Easter (the two holidays I host). A few things get refined - I started serving an aperitif and tapas to the adults last year, to rave reviews - but the basic menus are the same. And I tend to decorate our annual Christmas gingerbread house the same way each year. I just like it.

My Mom bought us a very cheesy ceramic egg plate with bunny salt and pepper shakers for Easter two years ago. She said that sort of thing is fun for kids' memories. Last Christmas I bought a ceramic Santa for the mantelpiece for the same reason. Taking it out becomes part of a tradition.