Check out these links for great ideas on how to incorporate fun and traditions in your family:

Family Fun Magazine Ideas

Family Fun Ideas

Creating Family Traditions

My Fun Journey

It is very important to have fun as a family. Laughter and fun bonds a family together. Fun also means great memories. Traditions in a family also create fun memories. I read the book Let's Make a Memory - by Gloria Gaither and Shirley Dobson when my children were young, and it made quite an impact on me. I wanted to instill some great memories in my family and this book gave me some great ideas on how to get started. I am still open to new traditions in our family, especially as my children continue to get older. But it's never too late to introduce traditions in your family. Here is a sampling of our some of our family's traditions when my children were younger. Hopefully it will get you started on your own family's traditions or perhaps give you some new ideas to try:

1. During the first year of my children's life, I took a picture of each them every month in the same chair. It is amazing how they change each month during their first year!



2. Starting at age 2 or 3, I would videotape my children on their birthday and also their 1/2 birthday. I would ask fun questions such as, "What is your favorite color?" "Who is your best friend?" "What is your favorite TV show?" As they got older, the questions would required more than one word answers.



3. When they lost their first tooth, I made a cake shaped like a tooth, and we celebrated! They blew out the candle on their tooth cake!



4. When it is their birthday, I decorate their bedroom door with streamers, balloons and a "Happy Birthday" sign across the door. I am still doing this and my two kids are in college! (They have January and June birthdays, so they have been home during that time on break - so the tradition continues!)



5. At the "Family Birthday" parties, Amber and Brandon had cousins about their same age. So we did the same games at their family birthday parties for years. And they were a hit! It was the Cake Walk and the Fishing Game. Each year, I would have the birthday boy or girl help me decorate each of the cake walk number squares for the game. I also had purchased a Birthday Tape with each of my kids' names in the birthday song and that would be the song we would use for the Cake Walk. Then each year, I would wrap presents for each cousin and my kids, and they would use a Mickey Mouse fishing pole over a blanket to fish for their present.



6. We had "count-down" boxes that helped count down 25 days until Christmas. The boxes were small so I would buy small candy and put two pieces of candy in each box. My kids took turns opening the boxes each day. When they were a bit older, every 4 or 5 boxes had a piece of paper that said they received a special prize. This would be a larger present.



7. When I had a special present for them, such as their Easter baskets, I would make the kids work for it. I would cut up pieces of paper and draw pictures of objects in the family room. I would place the different papers under each of the objects and the scavenger hunt began! For example, the kids started with a piece of paper that had a picture of a lamp. (I am not an artist so sometimes the hardest part was trying to figure out what I drew!) They would find the correct lamp and on the lamp would be another piece of paper. That paper (or clue) would be a picture of a book on a coffee table. When they found the right book on the coffee table, there would be another piece of paper with a drawing on it. They would continue the scavenger hunt until it eventually led them to the big prize. Sometimes the big prize required them to go outside and look in the car or on the deck.



8. What started as a small tradition turned into quite a large tradition. When Brandon and Amber were ages 2 and 3, we went with our play group to a nursing home at Christmas time. The kids did a Christmas craft with each adult and then serenaded them with Christmas songs. It was such fun that I thought we would continue the singing in our neighborhood. I invited the other kids in the neighborhood over to the house (most were a few years older than my kids) and I asked them if they would like to join us in Christmas carolling in our neighborhood. None of the neighborhood kids had ever gone Christmas carolling, but they were excited to try it. So off we went, and that year began a tradition that grew into quite the party! We continued it until the kids were in 7th and 8th grade. By that time, invitations were made and distributed to, not only the neighborhood kids, but also friends at school. The Christmas carolling party included: making a Christmas craft, eating Christmas goodies, playing Christmas games, reading the Christmas story from the Bible, having a birthday cake for Jesus and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus, and of course, Christmas carolling in the neighborhood. I would bake goodies before the event and pass them out to the neighbors after we sang. One year it was so cold that we could not go outside to Christmas carol. We had a sign up sheet and each person wrote a name down that they would like to call and we could all sing Christmas carols to over the phone. We sang to many grandmas and grandpas that year! That was a very fun and memorable time!



9. Every summer, starting when my kids were ages 2 and 3, I hosted a 5-day Backyard Bible Club. We would gather up the neighborhood children and give invitations to Brandon and Amber's school friends, and for one week in the summer, our backyard was filled with children! Two or three teenagers who were trained to do these clubs through Child Evangelism would come and lead the group. My job was to supply blankets for the 30-40 kids to sit on and have baked goodies for the kids when the club was over. I became known for a special treat that the kids would look forward to every summer - cupcake cones. If the weather was bad, everyone would come in our house and fill up one whole room! It was great! All the kids looked forward to this every summer. Amber enjoyed it so much that when she was 13 years old, she was trained to lead a club. She spent one summer leading clubs, including the one at our house!



10. Birthdays are always a special time. It is a major event when you pass from one age to another. So to commemorate the event, the day before the birthday, we ask the "birthday person" the question, "How old are you?" And the birthday person would answer. We would ask this question many times during the day - because it is the last day that they can officially say they are that age. As the kids have gotten older, we will ask them this question all the way up to midnight. If they aren't home, they receive several text messages with this question. As soon as the clock reads 12:01 a.m., the question is asked again, "How old are you?" Now they have a new age to say!