What is the importance of passing the traditions from generation to generation?

Leave Your Legacy with These Family Tradition Tips

Family traditions are how we connect with each other across generations. By sharing our favorite events, experiences, silly games, gifts, and songs with each other, we build bonds that stand the test of time and make our family experiences unique. Passing down family traditions strengthens those bonds.

You may not even realize the importance of your family traditions, as you may just take them for granted. These are the things that shaped your childhood, and often help you to shape the childhoods of your own children. Those little things that you took for granted with your family, those things you thought every family probably did the same way until you started realizing that what makes every family unique, are your traditions.

Finding Your Family Traditions

You may be thinking to yourself that you really don’t have any expensive family heirlooms or jewelry to pass down. But what you pass on doesn’t necessarily have to be something that’s thought to be an antique. Think back to your childhood – to when you interacted with your parents and grandparents. What memories are your fondest? The tradition of gathering together as a family every Christmas Eve? Getting to go through your grandmother’s or mother’s costume jewelry to play dress up? Cooking a family recipe for spaghetti sauce that had never actually been written down that usually requires several taste tests before it’s just right? These are all great starting points!

These are the memories that you can keep alive for the future generations, as they will become fond memories for them and their children. Family recipes can be lost to time, and all those tastes you savored as a kid will be gone forever. Canning is a lost art that is slowly making a comeback, and can be great to pass on. Photo albums that showcase how the family lived can never be replaced.

A family heirloom might not be something that has been around for ages, but can be something as simple as dog tags from World War II or china from a fiftieth wedding celebration of your grandparents. Porcelain dolls that were collected when your mom was young or jewelry can all be lovely keepsakes for future generations to enjoy. Passing down the stamp collection you started with the help of your grandparent can be an heirloom and a new tradition of adding to the collection. Preserving the past helps to educate the future.

Creating New Family Traditions

You may be thinking to yourself that you don’t have any particular family traditions that are worth passing on to the next generation, but that isn’t necessarily the case. There is nothing that says that you cannot create your own family traditions. Think outside of the traditional box. For instance, teaching children about ways that the family has saved money or helps others financially can be a wonderful tradition to start now. Perhaps you’ve always set aside five dollars a paycheck to go into a Christmas account to pay for presents. This may not seem like a tradition, but it’s a great one to get future generations involved in doing themselves.

Maybe you can create a new family tradition based on something that you’ve started doing now. For instance, maybe you’ve taken up quilting to help the community programs provide quilts for hospitalized children. This is something that can be fun to pass on to your children or grandchildren, especially when they come for a visit. A lot of kids today are thought of as only being interested in video games and television shows, but that’s often because that’s what is offered as an option as something to do. Giving them other options can open up doors to fun activities that can be passed down to them like cooking, gardening, crafts, and collecting items like stamps or dolls.

Moving Forward

Getting older, changing seasons and moving forward with your life doesn’t mean that you have to let go of all the family traditions that you once enjoyed. Share what you know with your family or your friends. Traditions should be shared with future generations to keep a sense of family alive. These are all things that can be links between the past and the present, and help with remembrance.

At Sunshine Retirement Living, we love helping our residents create new memories and keep their existing traditions alive. To learn more or speak with one of our friendly and knowledgeable staff members, contact our team today.

Family traditions are experiences or activities that are passed down between generations. These traditions can be as unique and special as the family itself. In addition to being something to look forward to, traditions also establish a foundation for family values and serve as special bonding experiences.

Traditions can provide families with a sense of identity and belonging. They can inspire positive feelings and memories that family members can share. Family traditions also provide a sense of continuity across generations. They are a way of transferring the family's values, history, and culture from one generation to the next.

Family Routines vs. Traditions

Family traditions differ from everyday family routines, which also occur repeatedly, but lack the symbolic meaning that family rituals hold. While family traditions carry a special significance for all family members involved, family routines are often basic activities that are necessary to keep the family unit functioning. A family dinner on Friday night may be part of the family routine, for example, whereas a family dinner at a favorite restaurant for Mom's birthday may be a tradition.

Many families have traditions that endure for generations. These special activities or events often generate fond memories that everyone cherishes and attempts to carry on. Some traditions relate to the family's heritage, like going to a cultural festival or cooking a meal from the "old country" on a certain day each year. Others may have to do with special events, such as a pearl necklace that is passed down at each wedding. Still others are simply fun activities that family members enjoy repeating.

For instance, a family full of baseball fans may make it a tradition to go to the stadium on opening day. This tradition may have started with great-grandpa and continues to involve the youngest members of the family, becoming something they look forward to every year.

Why Traditions Are Important

People create and maintain family traditions because they bring meaning to celebrations and foster special bonds. More importantly, traditions create positive experiences and memories for everyone by nurturing a family's connection and giving them a sense of belonging.

Family traditions also help children understand who they are and what is important to the family to which they belong. Traditions create a connection for children that comes from feeling like they are part of something unique and extraordinary. Family traditions can even contribute to a child's self-esteem and enhance their well-being. After all, children find comfort and security when things are predictable and consistent.

Benefits of Family Traditions

• Make memories for families that last a lifetime
• Provide children a sense of security by providing continuity
• Give family members a strong sense of belonging
• Help pass on family values including cultural and religious heritage
• Keep generations connected and give them a family history to share

How to Keep Traditions Going

Establishing and maintaining family traditions is a way for families to bond over shared experiences—a way for them to connect to one another and to their past. But keeping family traditions going takes some commitment and planning. While most people look forward to the stability and predictability that comes with repeating the same activities each year, it also can be daunting if the family traditions are highly involved, overly expensive, or require a lot of planning.

When you are creating your own family traditions, try to keep them simple. Think about playing games, sharing special recipes, going on a hike, seeing a performance, and so on. These simpler traditions are more likely to be repeated and carried on. Likewise, your traditions do not need to cost a lot of money. There are plenty of ways for families to bond without spending money.

When creating new family traditions for your family, it's also important to be open to trying things out and then scrapping them if they don't work. If you schedule a visit to see the lights display at the zoo thinking it could become a fun tradition, but it turns out to be a miserable experience (say, because the weather doesn't cooperate or your child's allergies kick in), it's OK to scrap the idea and do something else next year.

You don't want to repeat an activity over and over just because it sounds good. The goal of a family tradition is that everyone has fun and looks forward to repeating it year after year.

When most people think of family traditions, they naturally think of holiday traditions first, such as those surrounding Kwanzaa, Christmas, Hanukkah, or Ramadan. Events surrounding these holidays, like picking out a Christmas tree, lighting the candles on the menorah or kinara, and gathering for dinner with extended family can become regular traditions.

But families can also have non-holiday rituals that are unique to them. Apple picking every fall or renting a vacation home every summer are two good examples. Some families also may have family traditions for every member's birthday.

Family traditions may even be as ordinary as baking a special cake that is the birthday celebrant's personal favorite or going to dinner at their favorite restaurant. It may also be something funny or an inside family joke that becomes a tradition on everyone's birthday.

To create traditions for your family, think about things that your family enjoys doing and build upon those things.

Keep in mind too, that family traditions sometimes just form on their own. Some of the best family traditions happen by accident—you do something on a whim and the entire family loves it and wants to repeat it again. Before you know it, you have created a family tradition.

Traditions that are formed by accident are often the easiest to repeat year after year because the family looks forward to it. But if you're looking for ideas on family traditions that you can incorporate into your family's life, here are some additional ideas.

General Traditions

If you're looking for some non-holiday traditions, there are a lot of opportunities out there. Here are just a few that you can adapt for your family or use as fodder for developing your own unique ideas:

• Volunteer each spring in the annual community cleanup.
• Cook hamburgers on the grill on Saturdays during the summer.
• Take a silly family selfie during summer vacation each year.
• Buy food for the local food pantry once a month and deliver it together.
• Have a bonfire to celebrate the last day of school.
• Serve in a local soup kitchen together once a month.
• Go apple picking or visit a pumpkin patch each fall.
• Have a particular food on a set day each week, such as brunch on Sunday, breakfast for dinner on Friday, or tacos on Tuesday.
• Build a fire and make hot chocolate on the first day of winter.
• Go on a maple syrup hike each winter.
• Organize a family book club.
• Take part in an annual fitness challenge as a family.
• Go on a family walk or bike ride every Sunday afternoon.
• Watch the sunrise together on the first day of summer and the sunset on the last day of summer break.
• Plan a regular family game night and play board games together.

Social distancing and stay-at-home guidelines put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic may have made it hard to honor some family traditions, but it also became a good time to start new ones. Those virtual game nights and Zoom family visits can become a tradition that lasts well after the pandemic is over and strengthens your bonds with family near and far.

Holiday Traditions

If you're looking to create new winter holiday traditions, here are some ideas that will get your creative juices flowing. Choose or adapt the ideas from this list or use them to create your own unique holiday traditions.

• Give everyone a new set of pajamas and take a family photo in your matching PJs.
• Give each child a board game or puzzle and play the games or assemble the puzzles together as a family.
• Watch a seasonal movie each Thanksgiving, like "Home Alone," "Die Hard," "Elf," or "The Grinch."
• Cook a meal together as a family on your family's special holiday.
• Get hot chocolate and watch a community tree lighting ceremony.
• Tour your community to look at the light displays on homes or businesses.
• Host a family or neighborhood cookie exchange.
• Assemble care packages for family members who are away during the holidays.
• Write heartfelt letters to family members you can't spend time with during the holidays.
• Host a white elephant gift exchange.
• Attend a holiday performance or concert each year, such as the "Nutcracker," the local symphony, or Trans Siberian Orchestra.
• Get a new piece of holiday-related decor, like a Christmas ornament, each year, or make an ornament to commemorate the past year.

A Word From Verywell

Family traditions don't have to be formal, nor do they have to cost money. All that is required to create a new family tradition is something meaningful to your family and a little creativity. Additionally, family traditions do not have to revolve around the holidays. You can create family traditions for just about any time of year. Simply look for ways for your family to spend time together doing something they enjoy.

Verywell Family uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

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3. Sharif MS, Zahari MS, Nor NM, Muhammad R. How could the transfer of food knowledge be passed down?. Procedia Soc Behav Sci. 2013;105(0):429-37. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.11.045

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By Rebecca Fraser-Thill
Rebecca Fraser-Thill holds a Master's Degree in developmental psychology and writes about child development and tween parenting.

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