Ancestry Magazine

Ritual and tradition are important elements of human life. Traditions connect the participants in a common endeavor (such as being a family) with a common goal.

Every year for Thanksgiving, each member of Debbie and Stas Mintowt’s family writes a short speech about what he or she has been thankful for during the past twelve months. They tie the speeches with ribbons and read them aloud at Thanksgiving dinner. The entire family participates—even the little kids.

“It’s a nice way to not just breeze through the day without a thought to what it’s all about,” says Debbie. “Plus, we keep the speeches for memories.”

Debbie and Stas have created a simple family tradition that works as an important family ritual on two levels: First, their thoughtful custom brings the family together in an activity that affirms their common values and their love for one another. Second, because the family keeps all the speeches after the holiday is over, they’re creating an archive of family events, thoughts, and feelings that future generations of the Mintowt clan will be able to enjoy.

Ritual and tradition are important elements of human life. Traditions connect the participants in a common endeavor (such as being a family) with a common goal. As folklorist Steven J. Zeitlin says, “Traditions are glue, the common ground around which a family revolves.”

Strong family traditions are one way of building a powerful family bond. Amid the rapid pace, constant flux, and uncertainty of contemporary life, it’s reassuring to have traditions that a family can depend on always to remain the same. If those tradi tions have been passed down from earlier generations, so much the better; a family’s sense of connection to their forebears is enhanced. But it’s never too late to create new family traditions that your children can pass on to your grandchildren.

A Link to History
Just as many cultural and religious traditions symbolize historical events, family traditions can evoke a family’s roots. The Smithsonian folklore collection includes Kathy Kundla Crosby’s story of how her family stayed connected to its Russian Slovak heritage. She talks of going with her family to her grandparents’ house for Christmas Eve dinner as a child. Before they ate dinner, the entire group would kneel and pray in Slovak. Then the youngest child in the family would sit in a basket filled with straw, to represent the Christ child.

Traditions that continue customs started by your forebears are priceless. They link you to your relatives in a real and palpable way, creating an appreciation of their lives and an awareness of their legacies for you and your kin. If you don’t already have handed-down traditions in your family, do some family history research to get started. Interviewing older family members can unlock many details about family customs.

If you don’t uncover any specific family traditions in your research, use what you do know about your ancestors to create new rituals. Do you have Swedish or Finnish ancestry somewhere in your lineage? Start a Saint Lucia ceremony in your family. Is your family of African descent? Consider celebrating Kwanzaa, the holiday that celebrates African culture.

There’s no reason to limit yourself to rituals from your own ethnic background either. If you’re of Polish descent but find something about holiday traditions from Mexico that you really like, try some with your family. The main idea is to have traditions that everyone will enjoy participating in year after year.

Keeping the Faith
Religious rituals are a major source of family traditions and can be adapted to meet the needs of your family. An example is the Jewish family that celebrates the Seder, the ritual dinner that begins the eight-day holiday of Passover. The family starts not with the story of the Jews leaving Egypt, as is traditional, but with the family’s stories of the exodus of the father’s ancestors from Russia and of the mother’s from Germany. The family incorporates the religious message of the traditional text into a retelling of their own family history.

Religious customs can be ideal springboards for creating family traditions. Incorporating church rituals into the fabric of family life lends a spiritual dimension to daily living and serves as a thread to a divine element that many families find vital. Think about which rituals from your religious tradition are most meaningful to you (or from a spiritual tradition that you find appealing, if you don’t belong to an organized religion), and then consider ways to “secularize” these customs and weave them into your family activities.

Aunt Gertrude’s Goulash
Many family rituals and traditions involve special foods prepared for special occasions. Having a distinctive menu for family gatherings—whether it’s a holiday or just a family event—strengthens the familial bond and fosters an important sense of continuity.

My family, for instance, always has the same dessert on Christmas Day: an old-fashioned English plum pudding with a sweet, creamy sauce, a tradition carried over from my family’s English and Scottish forebears. Folklorist Annie Hatch remembers the “money cakes” she and her brothers enjoyed on their birthdays growing up. “Mom would add coins to the batter before baking,” Annie explains. Sometimes her mother was able to make sure the birthday child got the piece of cake with the best coin (a quarter) in it.

Although it may seem like a minor part of family rituals, eating the same foods on special occasions can create a w elcome sense of familiarity and tradition in a family. There are a number of ways to create this ritual in your own family.

If certain holiday and special-event foods already exist in your clan, you’re ahead of the game. Make sure you record the recipes and learn how to make the dishes if someone else in the family has been the keeper of the recipes (and the chef). Don’t be afraid to adapt or replace foods that have lost their popularity in the family over the years. If your family doesn’t have a tradition of customary foods to eat on holidays, this is your chance to flex your creative muscle and come up with menu traditions that will work in your family.

One on One
In the hustle and bustle of daily family life, it’s easy for some kids to feel lost in the shuffle; even an only child can feel that he or she doesn’t get enough time alone with Mom or Dad. Activities that include all the members of the family are important for uniting the entire clan, but it’s also important to create traditions that allow each parent to bond individually with each child in the family.

There are many ways to make a tradition that creates and preserves a bond between a parent and child. Many fathers will take their sons hunting or fishing as a “male bonding” ritual, but if these activities don’t suit you, consider a hike in the mountains or a bike trip. One woman has fond memories of making pancakes with her father on Sunday mornings; another mother has begun a movie night with her teenage daughter once a month. The possibilities are endless; the goal is to find something you both enjoy doing together, and then keep doing it.

‘Tis a Gift to Be Simple
Traditions and rituals aren’t only for holidays and special occasions, and they don’t have to be elaborate. Incorporating small rituals into the daily functioning of a family draws everyone closer together.

Daily. Starting supper with a prayer can set a warm and respectful tone f or the meal, allowing everyone to leave the day’s aggravations behind and focus on good food and conversation. Even a simple moment of silence can serve as a break from the toil of the day and an opportunity for quiet reflection.

Some families let dinner talk chart its own course. Others organize supper conversations around certain topics. One idea is to assign each family member the job of choosing and researching a current-events topic he or she finds interesting; then, when it’s that person’s night to preside over the dinner time dialogue, the “expert” tells a little about the topic, and the rest of the family asks him or her questions about the subject. One family sets aside some dinners for talking and others at which they’re allowed to read at the table. Another has a custom in which the mother or father reads to the family during dinner, with the choice of book rotating among the children.

Making family dinner a daily event, during which values, ideas, and happenings of importance to the family are discussed, is invaluable for creating a sense of togetherness.

Parents of young children know that bedtime is rarely a child’s favorite event. But going to bed can be a time for soothing rituals that help your children prepare their minds for a good night’s rest, and give you the opportunity to let them know they are loved and protected.

One mother opens the front door at night with her toddler daughter to say good night to the trees, the stars, and the moon. On summer nights, a young father concentrates with his son on the sound of crickets as a quiet meditation and release of the day’s worries.

Reading a favorite story to a child at bedtime is a wonderful and time-honored tradition in many families. A delightful variation on this is when the parent or child invents the story, extending and embellishing it night after night.

Weekly. Scheduling one night each week to spend just with the family is an easy tradition to begin—and one that p ays great dividends in terms of family closeness. Whether it’s a night of faith-based activity, a family meeting, an evening of fun, or a mixture of all three, “family night” is a terrific way to unite the clan.

One family sets aside Saturday night as pizza night. The whole family pitches in to make homemade pizza from scratch, with all their favorite toppings. Then they watch a video or go to a movie at the local dollar-a-movie theater. Another family has weekly video nights where they only watch films that have won Academy Awards for best picture.

Monthly. Building a ritual around the phases of the moon may have a somewhat pagan ring to it, but celebrating the full moon can be an entertaining way to acknowledge the moon’s cycles and may even spark an interest in astronomy or the other sciences in your children. One father takes a monthly walk with his children on the night of the full moon. They discuss the wildlife they see or make observations about the constellations, but they also talk about their dreams and memories.

A family book group is another way to bring the family together once a month. You may want to include the entire family, or have a mother-daughter book club and a father-son book group. A book group is a perfect forum for talking about many concepts, and kids can begin to feel confident expressing their opinions. Let each child choose the month’s book (with some parental guidance).

Another educational yet fun monthly activity could be called “around the world in thirty days.” At the beginning of the month, have a child close his or her eyes and point to a country on the map. Spend the rest of the month learning about that country, using encyclopedias, library books, and the Internet.

A Pinch of This, a Dash of That
If you’ve decided to create some new traditions for your family, here are some tips from family ritual expert Meg Cox.

• Rituals need to have structure—a beginning, a middle, and an end . The beginning is the preparation, the middle is the action, and the end is the moment of “integration and celebration.” Creating a suitable environment for the ritual—through the lighting of candles, for example—is a necessary part of the first step.

• Two things give a ritual its power and meaning: 1) a focus of concentration that screens out everyday distractions, and 2) the calling up of a deep-seated “emotional or psychological truth” on the part of the participants. This truth that is celebrated may be a spiritual faith, a conviction of the importance of the family union, or a belief in a principle that conveys social or environmental benefit.

• You can create a tradition by organizing it around one of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Planting a tree or some flowers can symbolize a new venture. A ritual using air connotes lightness and letting go (with balloons, kites, confetti, or soap bubbles). Fire can represent the sun, hearth and home, destruction that makes way for rebirth (e.g., candles, bonfires). Water means cleansing, baptism, and purification.

• Rituals often call for words. Use language that comes from the heart and expresses the event’s emotional or psychological truth. And don’t forget to include your sense of humor.

• Although it makes sense for a ritual to have a leader, that person should be willing to “share the microphone.” Giving everyone a chance to say something contributes to the necessary give-and-take of a tradition.

• The end of the ritual is usually a time for celebration, and this often means food. The meal or refreshment you serve should be symbolic of the tradition you have shared together.

Some Things to Keep in Mind
When you’re getting ready to create new traditions, focus on what’s important to your family. If sports are a family passion, build some rituals around athletic events. If everyone loves to read, think about a family book group. If good food draws the clan to gether, consider taking cooking classes as a family. Do you feel strongly about doing charity work? Serve meals together in a soup kitchen or sing carols in nursing homes and hospitals.

Look at the calendar and see if there are times of the year that are lacking in ritual celebrations in your household. Perhaps you need to think about inventing rituals to commemorate the change of each season, or spend more time planning a really great family vacation each summer. Learn about your family’s ethnic background and find ways to celebrate any ethnic holidays that apply. If your extended family doesn’t already have a family reunion each year, think about starting one.

Remember that there are times when traditions need to change. Children will outgrow some rituals; a matriarch or patriarch who was a keeper of the ritual flame may die. A common occurrence in our society is divorce. After a remarriage, it’s crucial that stepparents take the time to forge relationships with their new stepchildren, and making a tradition that you perform alone with the stepchild is an excellent way.

Folklorist Steve Zeitlin notes, “Rituals are an interesting combination of tradition and innovation—bringing the past to bear on the present—having the past be very present now. People can use tradition to change as well as to stay the same. Traditions need constant upkeep. It’s never easy—a family needs to create its own world.”

Keep in mind that spontaneity is an important element in any ritual, and rigid adherence to a tradition that has lost its luster and become hollow may alienate family members. Be flexible in your ritual practice. And remember that building rituals into your daily family routine can be good practice for the bigger traditions that come with holidays and special events.

Cultivate your traditions carefully, and they will nourish your family for years—perhaps even generations—to come. As Steve Zeitlin says, “Traditions are where you live, where you’re born, and wher e you die. Tradition is where the meaning of our lives is found.”

Further Reading
Berg, Elizabeth. Family Traditions: Celebrations for Holidays and Everyday (Reader’s Digest Association, 1992).

Cox, Meg. The Heart of a Family: Searching America for New Traditions That Fulfill Us (Random House, 1998).

Gaither, Gloria, and Shirley Dobson. Let’s Make a Memory: Great Ideas for Building Family Traditions and Togetherness (Word Books, 1983).

Zeitlin, Steven J., Amy J. Kotkin, and Holly Cutting Baker. A Celebration of American Family Folklore: Tales and Traditions from the Smithsonian Collection (Pantheon Books, 1982).

Alyssa Hickman Grove is a Salt Lake City—based freelance writer and a former managing editor of Ancestry Magazine.