I have said time and again that that life is all about relationships and experiences. With that in mind, there is no better way to foster both of these things than to have healthy and celebratory traditions. Yearly, monthly, weekly, or even daily habits we have within our groups (families most likely) that everyone takes part in and shares their ideas, experiences, and/or joy.
I believe we all have some type of yearly traditions. For most of us, we have the Holidays. Whether we celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Cuanza, Thanksgiving, New Years, Easter, Valentines Day, and of course my favorite, Halloween, we all find a reason to eat, drink, and be merry, or just have fun activities with our loved ones. But our yearly traditions don’t have to end there, we could have our yearly family vacation in the summer, family ski trip in the winter, hiking in the gunks in the autumn, whatever.
Many people even have monthly family traditions as well. I have heard of families that on the 2nd Sunday of every month go roller skating, to a drive in movie, or even just a family dinner at a fancy restaurant.
Weekly traditions are wonderful too. How many of us have ever heard of Friday family game night? Church on Sunday is a tradition too.
Daily, families gather around the dinner table to have dinner together ……. this is a tradition too.
I encourage ALL of these traditions. These traditions create the setting in which relationships are built, and some of our most joyous life experiences are had. These are the things we should be spending our time and money on. Not presents, toys, flashy clothes, elaborate appliances, or empty real estate.
Even personal traditions are healthy, as they still foster wonderful life experiences, and potentially start new relationships. They also to a great deal toward growing a persons relationship with themselves, and with humanity.
Personal Testimonial:
In my family we take the entire month of October to celebrate Halloween. We are absolutely crazy over it. My wife and I have a fascination for all things horror, gore, supernatural, and just plain scary. We are slowly but surely getting our little girl on board with this (horror is a tough sell to a child). All October long, it’s all about Horror flix, costume design, pumpkin picking and decorating, and haunted events. We just can’t get enough of it.