Cultivate and Treasure Family Traditions

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It’s no secret that family traditions are treasured experiences that link generations and help shape family and individual identity.

One of the most daunting tasks for parents is to decide which family traditions to carry on to from their own childhood and which family traditions to create together with their children.

Weekly traditions teach valuable lessons, such as spending every Sunday afternoon together in the kitchen teaching your child how to cook healthy meals.

Annual traditions make fun holiday memories, like baking Sugar Cookies and decorating them together at the family Christmas party.

Even simple family activities that you enjoy together throughout the year become cherished memories that stay with your children throughout their lives.

The pressure is on for parents to create opportunities for these wonderful memories to be made together but there is good news!

It doesn’t take a lot of time, effort, or money to create wonderful, lasting childhood memories.

Just like babies play with the wrapping paper more than they do with the gift itself, lol, children usually enjoy and remember best the simple things in life.

It is the small and simple traditions that your children will love and remember!

I wanted to learn and share what other families across America love to do together during the year to create wonderful family memories and I am so excited to introduce you to my friends Season and Danielle, who both run amazing mama blogs!

“My name is Season and I run the feel good blog “Busy Living My Best Life”. I am a super busy boy mama, lover of sunshine, coffee connoisseur, creative cook, and travel addict with a wanderlust soul.

Living in Southern California, my family and I are blessed with an abundance of lovely weather and opportunity to be outdoors.

Summer is our favorite season and our favorite place to spend our days is at the beach.

We have our favorite local spots like the Oceanside harbor and Mission Beach in San Diego, that we frequent regularly but we also make it a point to travel around to beaches we have never been to.

Every little cozy beach town that we visit is unique and brings us the perfect chance to relax and make memories.

When enjoying a day of sand and sun, you can find us engaging in all kinds of activities.

Some of our favorites are body boarding, building sand castles, burying each other in the sand, collecting seashells and sand dollars, diving into the waves, eating a picnic lunch, and playing beach soccer.

We spend our summer days sun kissed and covered in sand and we wouldn’t want it any other way!

Winter is not a season that we get to spend too much time enjoying since Southern California has mostly sunny days but that doesn’t stop my family from getting out and enjoying our favorite winter activity, skiing!

I grew up skiing with my dad and knew as soon as I had children that I wanted to expose them to the fun that downhill skiing brings!

From picking out our snow gear, the drive up the mountain, to actually riding the chair lift up, each moment adds to the building excitement of hopping off the lift and skiing down the mountain!

It’s a rush every time.

I thought the best part was getting back into my skis after an extended break but it turns out, the best part is carrying the tradition on with my son and seeing the excitement on his face as he masters his skill and can’t get enough of the slopes.

We are always happy to see winter arrive as it gives us the chance to step into our skis and fly down the runs on Bear Mountain in Big Bear, California.

You can follow Season at Busy Living My Best Life and she has a fantastic Instagram account you can follow as well!

Danielle LaFee is the creator of Piece of Cake Parenting, a parenting blog for new and expecting parents. She shares newborn and baby tips, breastfeeding information, and postpartum support to make the newborn days easier and more fun for all parents. 

Family time is a way of life in the Midwest and we love taking advantage of every excuse to spend time as a family.

My baby was born in June and we’ve enjoyed spending our first 3 seasons together, introducing him to our fun seasonal activities.

Summer:

We LOVE the summertime! There’s something about the warm weather, lazy days at the pool, and family barbeques that the other seasons just can’t compete with.

The highlight of our summer is our State Fair. We get up super early every morning and stay super late each night so we can fit in as much fair time as possible!

Our baby joined us this year and adored watching all of the people and seeing all kinds of different animals.

There are tons of different booths and vendors to check out and I love watching all of the little demos on cooking products, 4-H animal shows, entertainment programs, and more.

I can’t wait to introduce our baby to this tradition and recruit him to help get lots of free candy and knick-knacks from all of the booths.

We also adore fair food and spend way too much money stuffing our bellies full of amazing food!

We typically eat 4 or 5 meals a day, plus add in snacks and as many strawberry smoothies as possible. The belly ache is totally worth it!

Next year we also want to bring our baby on a few rides! I can’t wait to see what he thinks of them and have an excuse to try out a few carnival games together!

Fall:

In the Midwest, we definitely see big changes in our seasons. Falltime is beautiful with all of the leaves falling, bright colors, and fun autumn activities.

Every October, we take a weekend trip with my sisters to the apple orchard, pumpkin patch, and our favorite haunted house. This year we got to bring our baby along too!

We walk through a giant apple orchard with 26 different varieties of apples. We always gather up a few bags of apples to take home with us!

Then we go to the pumpkin patch and pick out the best pumpkins for our annual pumpkin painting/carving contest.

We’re so excited to help our baby paint his first pumpkin next year!

Our trip always ends with the best haunted house ever! It’s in a tiny town (Leonard, ND) and has a haunted corn field, a crazy bus ride, a huge maze in the school, and a few haunted houses.

It’s massive and always gives us a good scare and lots of laughs!

Winter:

We typically get a lot of snow during the wintertime and always try to enjoy at least one big snow storm. After a giant blizzard, we like to get out and play in the snow.

I’m so excited to play winter games with our baby next year!

To start our snow day, we like to go outside and make a huge snow man! My family also likes to have a snow man contest to see who is the most creative.

My favorite creation was the snow pig I made a few years ago. It really looked like a pig!

After this, we all head to the huge hill for a few hours of sledding. We have so much fun racing down the hills and then giggle and try to catch our breath while we walk back up for another round.

Our baby is a bit of an adrenaline junkie so I think he will love this part of our winter traditions!

To end our snow day, we go inside and take off all of our wet snow gear.

Then we all make a cup of hot cocoa and top it with tons of mini-marshmallows. I usually sneak in extra marshmallows while we all talk and enjoy more family time together. 

You can follow Danielle at PieceofCakeParenting.com and she has a fantastic Instagram Account  you can follow as well!

I am SO thankful for these amazing blogger friends I have found!

I love their parenting style and the way that they put their family first in everything.

We also love to have fun all year round with our kids.

One of their favorite things to do together in the summer is ride their bikes to the park or visit any of the local splash pads.

They love to rake and jump in the leaves in autumn time and get our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch.

The first snowfall in winter finds us outside building snowmen together.

In the spring time my kids all help me plant the garden and care for our flower beds.

My favorite day of the entire year is the last day of school because I am SO happy that my kids will be home with me all summer long!

We always throw a big Summer Bash sometime at the beginning of summer vacation and invite family and friends to help us celebrate.

Every year my kids want to do the same simple things at the party: play water balloon games, draw with sidewalk chalk, play kickball, set up the Slip’N Slide, and eat Popsicles.

They are so happy with these ideas and although we play variations of the games, they request the same things every year.

It’s a low-key, low-budget, low-stress party that has HUGE Family Traditional Value.

We start counting down the days and gathering supplies all spring.

As my kids get older they like to be in charge of setting up and running the activities during the party.

I love that creating family traditions together teaches my children responsibility and how to contribute to a happy family life.

Herein lies the true value of Family Traditions: We create and sustain Family Traditions to provide love, service, and value to each other as we strengthen our family ties and raise responsible and considerate children.

May you enjoy all of your Wonderful Family Traditions and strive to create meaningful new ones for those whom you love most.♥

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Our best wishes that you and your family enjoy all of your Amazing Family Traditions together today and every day. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥