Thursday, January 1, 2009

New Years Eve/Day Traditions

Here's a poll for everyone: Did you have any fun New Year's Eve/Day traditions in your family growing up or currently and what are they? This is besides of course the traditional goal setting and starting of the new fitness regime :)

I do have one small one that I can share that I started sort of on accident when Parker was 2. We'll call them "Love letters to the Children." They don't have to be only once a year of course but I always do try to write one for each child at the end of each year (and more often during the year whenever the mood strikes) telling them how much we love them and what we are proud of them for. Also their accomplishments, character traits, their likes and dislikes, favorites things, and little quirks and stories. The goal is to have a little binder for each child when they go off to college, mission, married etc. Journal entries also work great for this of course! I remember when I was 16 or 17 my mom read to me from her journal things she had written about us when we were babies and it was so fun to hear and it helped me feel grounded and gave me a peek back into my childhood and helped me learn a bit more about myself. I also remember wanting to hear more, so that is the inspiration behind this little tradition. Thanks Mom! :)

Also If anything were ever to happen to me/us they would have a special record to look back on and remember that their parents were over the moon for them!

5 comments:

Rich said...

we were just talking about this last night because we don't have any really great New year's Eve traditions. We kind of consoled ourselves because keeping little children up late is just a pain.

We are looking for traditions and stuff to do for future New Year's. I love the idea of letters to the children.

i think we might get out home videos and watch those together. I got all of ours out and started cataloging them a few nights ago. It seemed like a fun way to reminisce and enjoy the time together.

Unknown said...

Watching home videos together is a great idea!!! I think we will do the same! :)

Rich said...

I got the videos out to find our Disney videos from previous trips so we could watch them and just get the kids involved. But, once I got them out it was just so much fun watching@!

Emilia said...

I love the love letter idea! I am going to start right now! You are a great mom- I want to be like you.
Love,
Emily

Unknown said...

Thanks so much Em! I wanna be like you too :)

Love you! Heather