Unusual Family Traditions to Adopt Now

There are the expected traditions, like getting a cake and balloons on your children’s birthdays, and the typical traditions that you do for the holidays, like Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. But then there are those traditions that are sprinkled throughout the days, weeks and years that may not be affiliated with a “special” day but can be totally just as important.

These fun breaks from daily routines encourage family bonding, celebrate the smaller accomplishments and make life a bit more fun overall. This all sounds good, but if you don't know where to begin, here are eight fun family traditions you can easily start right now.

Time to Celebrate

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Most Americans celebrate some sort of major seasonal holiday, be it Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hanukkah. But one thing we don’t typically celebrate is the changing of the seasons. Make it a family tradition to embrace the first day of spring, summer, fall and winter with special games, a decorated cake or even small presents (in the spring you can gift seeds and buy a new fun sweater in the fall).

Three Good Things

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We all want to focus on the positive, right? Of course we do, and we want our kids to do the same. One mindful way to highlight the good things happening in your life is to play the “three good things” game. Each evening, perhaps at dinnertime or before bed, each member of your family shares three good things that happened during the day. It can be small moments (“I won at four square!”) to big moments (“I got an A on that test!”). Sharing life’s triumphs is always a joy, no matter the size.

A Themed Weekly Dinner

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Who doesn’t love tacos? Little kids, big kids, moms, dads and even that visiting cousin—everyone loves a taco! Taco Tuesdays have become a popular dining tradition of late, from Los Angeles to Louisiana. But your family doesn’t have to do Taco Tuesdays. Instead you could do a “Meatless Monday,” “Tater Tuesday” or “Waffle Wednesday." The added fun is that everyone knows when “Waffle Wednesday” is and they will start to look forward to it. Added bonus? It takes any sort of meal-planning stress off your plate.

Add Candles to Dinner

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Having dinner as a family may be hard to schedule in, but it's an important addition to your clan’s routine. And get this, according to one of those fancy studies, having regular family dinners can help your kids get better grades, will make them more mentally and physically healthy and they will be less likely to engage in abusing drugs and alcohol. Pretty impressive results for doing something as simple as eating together!

Having dinner as a family is just step one, but you could add another tradition into dinnertime. Some may opt to say a pre-dinner prayer, and others might have each family member choose special dinner music on a certain night. For us, we like to eat dinner by candlelight. Not only does it make dinnertime feel fancy but after every meal, our daughter has the task of blowing out the candles—a job she loves.

Family Walks

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The family walk is a way to not just encourage togetherness but also to establish a healthy, active lifestyle with your kids. The best time to take a family walk is before or right after dinner. The pre-dinner stroll will work up an appetite, while the post-dinner stroll with help everyone digest—but the most beneficial aspect of this is the togetherness it brings.

Movie Night

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Pre-kids, Friday nights may have been a time to go out to dinner and hit a couple of bars. Post-kids, Friday nights are totally different. They are now, at least in my house, movie night (and I wouldn’t trade it for the world). Each week, we find a family-friendly flick, make some popcorn, grab a bunch of blankets and curl up on the couch for our weekly movie watching. Warning: The biggest challenge may be finding a film that everyone wants to watch!

Game Night … Go!

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Monopoly, Scrabble, Go Fish and Apples to Apples: Those are just a few of the games we pull out on family game night, one of my favorite nights of the week. Not only does this weekly gaming give us all a good excuse to come together in the name of fun, but it can be educational, too! Just pick a game where you all have an even playing field and is age-appropriate (so Trivia Pursuit and Crimes Against Humanity are both totally out—until the kids are older, that is).

Give Back

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There are all sorts of traditions that we do for the sake of gluttony (birthday cakes and trick-or-treating) and for the sake of greed (Christmas list to Santa), but a meaningful and important tradition your family can take on is the habit of giving back. This is a tradition that is best to start early, making charity a part of your child’s life through her formative years and beyond. How you choose to introduce this tradition is totally up to your family and the values you hold dear, but the act of doing something, anything, will be an important trait that (hopefully) your children will do for years and years to come.