The Magic Of Family Traditions

The Magic of Family Traditions

Over the years we have had many different fun family traditions.

Last week we had our son Matt ask if he could come home with his girlfriend Jenny to go pumpkin picking at the same place we have been going to for years and also do our traditional pumpkin carving.

I must say I was very pleasantly surprised as I had no idea how much the kids enjoyed our family traditions such as this one. I was actually shocked that he sent an email asking if he could come and spend the weekend with Barb and I to do our Halloween tradition.

Over the years we have had a number of Family traditions and most have revolved around special occasions. Here are a just a few of our Brady family traditions:

Kids set up their own Christmas tree and give own gifts

Barbs homemade quiche on Christmas morning

Karaoke with the family on Christmas night

Church on Christmas Eve

Pumpkin picking in pumpkin patch and one pumpkin for each child(including the dog)

Decorating the outside of the house for Halloween

Annual NFL football trip with boys

Thanksgiving in Ellicottville

Road race and Mountain Biking race in Ellicottville during fall festival

Birthday dinners to celebrate all birthdays

On your birthday, signing the “Happy Birthday” board as a record of all the birthdays

Our 2017 Halloween Story

Last week, Matt sent us a note asking if we were home as he and Jenny would like to come home for the weekend to go apple and pumpkin picking. As I outlined, we were pleasantly surprised as this is Matt’s first year back from school and he wanted to come home and continue on with our longtime family tradition.

The last few years, Barb and I have had zero children at home for Halloween however we have continued our Halloween tradition even without them being around. We had fun doing it and thought we would continue the tradition. What we didn’t realize was that the children would re-engage in these obviously important traditions as they reach adulthood. I think the kids were surprised that we continued our Halloween tradition even though they weren’t at home over the past few years.

Our tradition was that we would all go to a local pumpkin patch and take a wagon out to the fields to all pick our own pumpkins. We would all try to get a pumpkin that resembled us and then would carve a design that either looked like us or dressed them up to look like us. This was all in great fun and done in a kidding way(you know the way we all joke with our kids!).

We would typically do the pumpkin design and carving on a Sunday and of course, would have NFL games on while we were pumpkin cleaning and carving while Barb was cooking Sunday night dinner. This is exactly what happened this year as well.

This year after receiving Matts email we continued the tradition. We went to the pumpkin farm and picked out our pumpkins(one for every family member) as well as apples and apple crisp to have for dessert. We spent the afternoon cleaning out the pumpkins and carving them to our own design. Since Tim, Pati and Lauren were not with us, we, of course, carved their pumpkins for them and did them up to look as stupid as we could!

The Importance of Traditions

The interesting thing is that as a parent, we did these traditions over the years because when the children were young we and they loved doing them. That was obvious last week when Matt called us to see if he could come to our house to repeat the family tradition.What we didn’t realize and it hit me last week was how important these traditions are and how much the kids liked them.

While carving last week, I was reflecting back that I have been carving pumpkins for each of the kids over the last 26 years and likely even before that as I am sure Barb and I did it before we had children. Every year we have picked, cleaned out and carved a minimum of 6 pumpkins. That is a lot of carving over the years and needless to say I haven’t become any more talented in my pumpkin carving!

The takeaway

My take away from this as a parent is to never underestimate the value of the family traditions you start. I realize now that these traditions have been not only fun but have created a bond in our family. Now all of these traditions continue to bring the family together on these important milestone events.  I also realize that once our grown children get married and have children of their own, I am sure they will continue on with these or their own family traditions.

Never underestimate the value of your own family traditions.

Have a great, Healthy day, Kev

Health Tip Of The Week

Every week I am going to share one important piece of Health Information that I have learned or read about.

One supplement I have added to my health arsenal is Tumeric. I put a teaspoon in my morning shake as it reduces inflammation and swelling. If I have a tough workout I also will take a few Tumeric capsules to reduce inflammation.