Traditions
Anyway, last week I had a quick read through the book "Treasuring God in our Traditions" by Noel Piper. I wasn't actually that keen on it, mainly because the title sounded a bit smultchy. But once I got past being intimidated by the super Christian family and the amazing poetry written by John Piper for his children's birthdays, I enjoyed the philosophy behind it.
The book speaks about family traditions and the positive impact that has, helping children feel secure in their place in the world. It also gives some creative ideas for celebrating Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving (for those from the States).
I liked the emphasis on how it's the everyday, small things that you repeat daily that will have a huge impact. So these traditions don't need to be grand affairs for your children to learn from. It's thinking about the values that you hold close and how you want to pass them onto your children.
I've always felt bad that we're not a particularly sporty family and surprise, surprise our kids aren't that into it. But we spend hours in music lessons and practice because we've both really enjoyed playing instruments. And as the title of my blog suggests, we're all dead keen on books too!
The book is wonderful in encouraging us to celebrate what is unique about our family and to seek to understand why God made us that way.
This book helped me reflect on what kind of traditions we have as a family, and think about some we might want to add in. I realised that we have a tradition on birthdays (but hadn't ever given it this label). Every birthday we go around the table and each person has to say to the birthday boy/girl something they really like or appreciate about them. It's so easy to do but incredibly affirming and connecting for our family.
What traditions have developed in your family as your kids have grown? Is there a story or reason behind the tradition?
Comments
We have a big celebration on Resurrection day - our 'Jesus is alive' party. We hand out presents, usually Christian books, or music... have a feast, read the Bible together, invite lots of people over to join the fun, sing around the piano, pray together, play games etc...we try to make it bigger than Christmas - cause how cool is it that Jesus is alive!! We've been doing it for about 8 years, and the kids love it.
We also celebrate Thanksgiving, Australian style. Andrew is half American, so there is some cultural heritage, but we don't really talk much about the American history, or significance - we just have a night of thanking God for things, praying through a psalm, etc. We didn't do it last year, or the year before, but we're thinking it may happen this year.
We also sing a lot as a family. We play games at the dinner table like - high/low, or quiz games - name five different types of snakes, name four different types of frogs etc... not every family would be into that, but we like it!