Sunday, September 28, 2008

family traditions

In their wonderful book Disciplines of a Godly Family, Kent and Barbara Hughes talk about the disciplines of promoting family affections through special times and holidays (ch. 2), and creating spiritual and secular family traditions (ch. 3).

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call special times and family traditions a biblical "discipline". But I do think these are wonderful opportunities to bond a family together, and give children memories of a secure, loving and happy childhood.

So here's us, continuing our own annual family tradition of going to the Royal Melbourne Show, a tradition which goes back a generation to Steve's own family:








What are your family traditions? Tell us about them!

5 comments:

David McKay said...

Hi Jean
I understand Mark Driscoll is big on this family traditions thing, but taking kids to see the Christmas lights [one of "creating family memories" schemes] leaves me cold.

Jean said...

You know, I said to my husband one day, "We need to create some memories" (a bit tongue-in cheek), and he laughed and said, "We are, every day". So true. The most important memories won't necessarily be the special times. But they have their place, as times a family can relax and enjoy each other, and the children can have their parents' undivided attention for once.

NotSoShorty said...

I think it's important to have some special traditions but sometimes they just happen. One year we decided to go berry picking just before Christmas - and now it is something we do every year. And, tying in with another recent post, my children spend a lot of time poring over birthday cake books in preparation for the big day. Jenny

mattnbec said...

Yeah, the day-to-day things are often good family traditions too. I sing my kids the same bedtime song that my mum sung us. We try to make Saturday lunches a bit more fun even if there's no real reason because it's just mice to all me together. One of my mum's best ones was that she only ever made us egg sandwiches as a treat on school holidays or when we were sick so that it was a special way of making us feel loved. None of those things are all that special really, but all of them are, in different ways,special memories.

Bec

Anonymous said...

Yes, it is funny how traditions just sort of start to happen. But they are very important because they are a part of family culture. All families have their own culture, but some are stronger than others.

We have a lot of birthday traditions, and we are getting some pretty special fishing traditions too.