NationStates Jolt Archive

haha, tricked you!

okay, so I got this card thing in the mail from someone today and it was about her new "business" selling family traditions (I know blech)

so, I went to the website (http://www.shopouaf.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=OUFD)to look, and all of it looks stupid to me, but it got me thinking, so here goes today's question

what traditions does your family have? are they old or new? do you like them? will you pass them down to your own family (if you decide to have one)?

do you think it's important for a family to have traditions? why? or why not?

she should sell old photographs and paintings from various eras so people could pick and choose fake ancestors that these purchased traditions are handed down from.

Trick eh? How long before this thread descends down into the depths of the "Gay or straight" argument?


Family reunions are our (wife and I) families traditions. Yes we will continue them as long as people show up. Also we are developing a tradition around the types of vacations we do.

she should sell old photographs and paintings from various eras so people could pick and choose fake ancestors that these purchased traditions are handed down from.
There is a local restaurant that I frequent that did just that, they bought a box of photographs off of ebay of an unknown family, and basically made up a history about the "matriarch" and named the place after her. All of the pictures are hanging up in the restaurant with captions under them about what was going on in the photo. It's hilarious. She is drinking a beer in nearly every photo too.

She is drinking a beer in nearly every photo too.

The pack of cigs makes a nice touch in the photo too. :D

Not a bad slogan either..

There is a local restaurant that I frequent that did just that, they bought a box of photographs off of ebay of an unknown family, and basically made up a history about the "matriarch" and named the place after her. All of the pictures are hanging up in the restaurant with captions under them about what was going on in the photo. It's hilarious. She is drinking a beer in nearly every photo too.

lol thats cool as long as they dont try to convince people that its true.

my sister and i bought a bunch of postage stamp sized tin types from the 1870s and sold them on ebay as "instant ancestors" for people' fancy doll houses.

The pack of cigs makes a nice touch in the photo too. :D

Not a bad slogan either..

:D They have two locations and about 60 photos, there is only one where she isn't drinking a beer, she is in a wedding party though, I have a suspicion she had on off frame and was about to go get it after the photo.

My family only have traditions revolving around Christmas day but fortunately they didn't mind too much when I told them I was going to go to Portugal over Christmas and New Years

haha, tricked you!

okay, so I got this card thing in the mail from someone today and it was about her new "business" selling family traditions (I know blech)

so, I went to the website (http://www.shopouaf.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=OUFD)to look, and all of it looks stupid to me, but it got me thinking, so here goes today's question

what traditions does your family have? are they old or new? do you like them? will you pass them down to your own family (if you decide to have one)?

do you think it's important for a family to have traditions? why? or why not?

Traditions can be important; in certain cases; traditions that exist merely to be traditions are ridiculous, however.

My family has traditions that are usually centered around our holiday get-to-gathers. Having a large gathering of extended family meeting on holidays can be a tradition.... My wife's family has a Thanksgiving tradition of going around the table and saying at least one thing they were thankful for over the previous year, also a tradition... I see no need to "purchase" a tradition...

DIY Christmas presents, beer brewing and the dreaded pickle of doooooooommmmmmm!

The only good traditions either:
A) Are stupidly embarrassing and impossible to explain to outsiders, or
B) Involve large amounts of alcohol in either the enacting of the tradition or its inception.

Back in the day of Santa Clause we would open gifts from the family on Christmas Eve and the Santa Presents on Christmas Day.

My dad lives 100 miles away. I see him once a month, we talk on the phone daily. That's a tradition i guess.

I have a personal tradition from college called the "tree-trimming party"

I am a very short woman with a LOT of Christmas ornaments and a HUGE TREE.

The tradition -- I cook a magnificent Italian dinner for my friends and serve it after we've decorated the tree. After dinner, we sit in the living room with Christmas carols playing in the dimmed room, with the tree as the focal point of the room -- then we exchange gifts, and then I serve coffee, hot cocoa, mulled cider, and dessert.

hmm, I really can't think of any family traditions except for the holiday-coming-together's. I used to hate them (the traditions, not really all of my family) , but now they're becoming tolerable.

I have a personal tradition from college called the "tree-trimming party"

I am a very short woman with a LOT of Christmas ornaments and a HUGE TREE.

The tradition -- I cook a magnificent Italian dinner for my friends and serve it after we've decorated the tree. After dinner, we sit in the living room with Christmas carols playing in the dimmed room, with the tree as the focal point of the room -- then we exchange gifts, and then I serve coffee, hot cocoa, mulled cider, and dessert.

How short are you?

Our family tradition is lighting the Hanukkah candles on the first night, standing around awkwardly for a second (sometimes somebody says, "Does anybody know some kind of Jewish song or Hebrew thing we're supposed to be saying right now?") and dispersing.

Yup.

We have food traditions. Kielbasa, halushki, pirogies..

Ilie - I know something:

Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha-olam asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav vitzivanu l'hadlik ner shel chanukah

Transliteration of the blessing over the candles.

Also: Happy Chanukah.

One family tradition we have is to invite a non-Jewish family to our Passover seders. Another is that whenever I have dinner at someone else's house, I bring a gift.

she should sell old photographs and paintings from various eras so people could pick and choose fake ancestors that these purchased traditions are handed down from.

Why go to all the trouble? Just do what I do, when you buy a frame or a new wallet, keep the sample picture they have in it and claim that's your family.

Why go to all the trouble? Just do what I do, when you buy a frame or a new wallet, keep the sample picture they have in it and claim that's your family.

lol

yeah but that only covers your current pretend family. for tradition you need the antique post cards where you pretend that the young woman on her honeymoon to niagara falls in the 40's is your grandmother, the flapper in the racy pic is your great grandmother, the business man in the bowler hat in new york in the 1890s is your great great grandfather, the civil war soldier tintype is your ... more grandfather than that.

THEN you start claiming that your great great grandfather started the tradition of the upside down christmas tree after his grand tour of europe in the 1880's and thats why your wife/girlfriend is NOT free to put up her prelit artificial tree.

we had a family tradition of having fish & chips for lunch every Saturday, while lol-ing to the Now Show on Radio 4. sadly our chippie guy isn't well for the time being and doesn't open on saturdays any more :(

we also have a tradition of going for a walk, preferably on the beach, on Boxing Day, pretty much no matter the weather.

Trick eh? How long before this thread descends down into the depths of the "Gay or straight" argument?


Family reunions are our (wife and I) families traditions. Yes we will continue them as long as people show up. Also we are developing a tradition around the types of vacations we do.

Knowing how NSG threads usually go, methinks we'll se something like this by page 7. If this thread gets there.

Then again, that's what my crystal ball always seems to say...

haha, tricked you!

okay, so I got this card thing in the mail from someone today and it was about her new "business" selling family traditions (I know blech)

so, I went to the website (http://www.shopouaf.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=OUFD)to look, and all of it looks stupid to me, but it got me thinking, so here goes today's question

what traditions does your family have? are they old or new? do you like them? will you pass them down to your own family (if you decide to have one)?

do you think it's important for a family to have traditions? why? or why not?

Well, the traditions in my family are mostly that we all passionately hate each other, that the stronger ones despise the weaker natures to the point of physical sickness, that arrogance is promoted as a virtue, everyone is waiting for the death of grandparents/ parents to get their hands on the inheritance, and general right-wing ideas and morals are held high.

If I ever have a family of my own I'll keep them as far away from these vultures as possible. An ocean between them and me sometimes still seems to close.

Haha, Cabra, we might be related. :D I've heard people talk about the "family nest." Yeah, my family is a nest -- a nest of vipers.

On the other hand, we used to have some pleasant traditions around the holidays, but those were really the province of my grandparents and great-aunts/uncles, and as they die off, we younger ones are drifting rather happily as far from each other as we can get. I don't even know the names of most of my relatives anymore. I suppose each little "cell" has its own new traditions, but I have no idea what they are.

But back when the old folks held sway, the foundational tradition was a ban on arguments during the holidays -- as if some un-named god would smite us if we brought up those age-old, never-ending feuds on either Christmas or Easter. So basically, it was a family tradition of keeping one's mouth shut for one frikkin' night. As long as everyone did that, we had a good time over enormous Italian feasts. Actually, they were more like potlatches -- a weird cultural tradition of competitive generosity/hospitality, in which hosts vied to lay out a better spread, more elaborate decorations, more fun activities. In other words, even when we were being nice, we were subtly stabbing each other in the back. My mom tells me there once were two family get-together feasts -- Christmas and Easter -- and her mom was the Easter hostess and one of my great-aunts was the Christmas hostess, but eventually, grandma lost the holiday cold war, and the Easter feasts were abandoned. So by the time I grew up, Great-Aunt Kay was the queen of family get-togethers, once a year.

So what did it look like: Up to 15 Muravyetsians (more if you count the littlest kids) sitting around a giant dinner table groaning under a brain-boggling array of Italian delicacies for upwards of 6 hours. Before that was a few hours of drinking, and afterwards, a few hours of more drinking and gift exchanges. All of it awash in the tinsely, glowing miasma of a multi-generational collection of Christmas ornaments (with a heavy emphasis on fading 1940s kitsch), and the omnipresent sound of Mitch Miller Sing-a-Long Christmas records.

But all the food, liquor and presents were just adornments to the real tradition, which was storytelling, as that older generation reminisced about their lives together, and all their insane adventures in Brooklyn and Queens, and WW2, remembering what it was like back in the early days of the 20th century, and whose ancesters had come from which Italian village back in the 1890s, and how those crazy Germans and Poles managed to marry into the clan, and whatever happened to the Mangiaracinas (long-lost cousins whose name meant "Eat a Raisin"), and passed around ancient photos as everyone remembered who these people were, and who took the picture and why, and what they did, and how they died.

But those days are gone now. My mom and I still have a lot of the old photos and remember a lot of the old stories, but the people they were about are dead, and my mom and I have smaller, more personal traditions. For instance, my mom and I being pop culture buffs, we have a library of holiday movies and tv shows we watch -- or just play in the house -- ritualistically as we go about other holiday activities. The 1951 version of "A Christmas Carol", "A Christmas Story", "Miracle on 34th Street", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and all the other classic shows, even "Die Hard" and "I Come In Peace" (both nominal Christmas movies), just for laughs.

I have no plans to build a family of my own, so I guess, some day, when my mom passes away, the last of my family traditions will pass with her. It's kind of sad, but what the hell. That's what time does to us. I'll just come up with something new. I guess I think that traditions are supposed to create continuity in our lives, but they can't do that by stopping the clock. In some ways they must always be about how we are living at the given moment, and if they can't be made to fit, then I guess they have to pass from being traditions to being history.

EDIT: Oh by the way, after all that Christmas cheer and fond memory stuff was over, the relatives all went back to their warring and back-stabbing and undermining and poisoning of each other's lives and hopes. At least my mom and I (fellow survivors) get along all the time. :)

hmmm the more i think about it, the more i like MY family tradition

we never see each other.

ya ya i see my one sister almost every day and the other sister once a year but i dont see my brothers from one year to the next. one i havent talked to in 12 years.

for this reason i like them all very much and find that when we DO get together we just enjoy the time without bringing up old grudges that linger when you live in each other's pockets.

our biggest tradition outside of feasting is to play poker together. we all know how to play, we all like to play and we dont get into big fights when we lose.

My son discovered the most atrocious birthday hat at a giftshop when he was six years old. http://wvls.lib.wi.us/Newsletter/heather_hats/HeatherBirthdayHat.jpg

Whoever has a birthday has to wear the hat and keep it until the next persons birthday when they get to hand it off.

I'm an agnostic, we don't have traditions.

Actually, we have a few -

We have lentil soup on Christmas Eve
We open one trivial present each on Christmas Eve and leave the rest for the Christmas.

We go to sports events, especially baseball games, together, even though we don't live together - we meet at my son's house, go the ESPN Sports bar or Baker Street for dinner, then we go to the game.

We meet at my son's house for Thanksgiving and Christmas, each of us bringing a portion of the food for what's on the menu. I do the cooking, we all eat (including the dog), and my kids clean up.

Most of our traditions revolve around food - I wonder how many others are the same?

We all get together to watch M*A*S*H after dinner. Or, time permitting, a Mel Broooks movie.

We all get together to watch M*A*S*H after dinner. Or, time permitting, a Mel Broooks movie.

Is that a daily thing?

Is that a daily thing?

Yeah, but sometimes I turn in early.

We, um, ignore each other?

And every year I complain about us celebrating Xmas 'cuz we're all atheists...
Then my dad goes "No, no - it's not Christmas, pretend it's Hogmanay!"

As a kid I used to be the season's tinsel fairy... meaning I was in charge of putting up lights and decorating everything. Purely because I'm obsessed with tinsel.

EDIT: Oh, we also sing "When Santa Kissed The Fairy On The Christmas Tree" for Christmas...

haha, tricked you!

okay, so I got this card thing in the mail from someone today and it was about her new "business" selling family traditions (I know blech)

so, I went to the website (http://www.shopouaf.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=OUFD)to look, and all of it looks stupid to me, but it got me thinking, so here goes today's question

what traditions does your family have? are they old or new? do you like them? will you pass them down to your own family (if you decide to have one)?

do you think it's important for a family to have traditions? why? or why not?
Well, this time of year we have a couple of fun traditions. One is stockings. Regardless of which winter holiday we are celebrating, we always have stockings hung up. Our stockings are massive devices, with reinforced seams, because they have to be able to hold a lot of goodies. We each get our favorite candy (or nuts, in the case of Mom), some pens (because we always need them), and a host of little goofy silly cheap gifts. My brother will receive between 6 and 15 matchbox cars.

Another fun tradition we have is Christmas cookies. We use Grandma's recipe for these simple sugar cookies, and then we make color icing in at least five shades. We have tons and tons and tons of cookie cutters, everything from trees to birds to cars to dinosaurs, and we make a crapton of cookies. Then we decorate! And that's the best part. Last year's highlights included a raptor covered with lightning bolts (me), a VW beetle striped in rainbow colors (my brother), a surprisingly realistic female cardinal (Dad), and Lady Godiva and her consort--both splendidly nude and with frosting pubes--courtesy of my mother.

"selling" "family traditions" does sound a rather oxymoronic turn of phrase.

you know, all this "family" business is really about putting a 'respectable' face on organized crime. and it's succeeded to the point that an awful lot of people seem to have somehow gotten convinced that this is how the countries they live in ought to be run!

somehow i don't think this is a very good idea for the future of the human, or any other, earthly species.

our family tradition is to visit the cave of the 900 grandmothers once a year, though the littlest and oldest ones seem more annoyed then flattered by this, as indeed i know i would be.

=^^=
.../\...

Yeah, but sometimes I turn in early.

I could never watch TV with my parents.. I don't even talk to them for more than 5 minutes..

haha, tricked you!

okay, so I got this card thing in the mail from someone today and it was about her new "business" selling family traditions (I know blech)

so, I went to the website (http://www.shopouaf.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=OUFD)to look, and all of it looks stupid to me, but it got me thinking, so here goes today's question

what traditions does your family have? are they old or new? do you like them? will you pass them down to your own family (if you decide to have one)?

do you think it's important for a family to have traditions? why? or why not?

Yeah, I'd speak German all the time and give my kids a love of german food/traditions. But no, it's not important for families to have traditions, really. I think it just gives the kids a heightened sense of nostalgia.

Yeah, I'd speak German all the time and give my kids a love of german food/traditions. But no, it's not important for families to have traditions, really. I think it just gives the kids a heightened sense of nostalgia.

Jeez, why would you want to torture the poor kids???

Jeez, why would you want to torture the poor kids???

That's what parents do, dear.

That's what parents do, dear.

True, but so far I still clung to the belief that they do so out of ingorance. Not out of sheer malice...

Well, this time of year we have a couple of fun traditions. One is stockings. Regardless of which winter holiday we are celebrating, we always have stockings hung up. Our stockings are massive devices, with reinforced seams, because they have to be able to hold a lot of goodies. We each get our favorite candy (or nuts, in the case of Mom), some pens (because we always need them), and a host of little goofy silly cheap gifts. My brother will receive between 6 and 15 matchbox cars.

Another fun tradition we have is Christmas cookies. We use Grandma's recipe for these simple sugar cookies, and then we make color icing in at least five shades. We have tons and tons and tons of cookie cutters, everything from trees to birds to cars to dinosaurs, and we make a crapton of cookies. Then we decorate! And that's the best part. Last year's highlights included a raptor covered with lightning bolts (me), a VW beetle striped in rainbow colors (my brother), a surprisingly realistic female cardinal (Dad), and Lady Godiva and her consort--both splendidly nude and with frosting pubes--courtesy of my mother.
your family is very cool.

my family traditions

Vernal equinox- we celebrate by writing down our major goals for the year (from one spring to the next) we open these on Winter solstice (my birthday) and try to catch up if we are behind. Goals range from "keeping a better calendar" (hubby, who never quite knows when he is supposed to do what) to "taking over the world" (which has been a goal of my oldest daughter since 2002, she's still working on it).

birthdays- from the time you were born on your birthday until 24 hours later, you don't have to do anything you don't want to, your chores are picked up by someone else, your meals are brought to you if you don't want to get up, and you get to choose what the family does (within reason) I tend to take more advantage than anyone else, since getting all my food served to me doesn't often happen unless I am really really sick. Also on birthdays we tend to do homemade gifts, or gifts of service (last year I got my car detailed by hubby and the children and also they shampooed my carpet for me)



Christmas- we take cookies to old people in nursing homes, we drive to see Christmas lights, and on Christmas eve we let the kids open one present, which is always brand new pajamas so that on Christmas when they wake up frenzied to open their gifts and stocking they have something acceptable for me to snap photos in. We do stockings and everyone gets them, even if we have a guest, they get a stocking. Traditionally they have candy, a Pez dispenser, small useful trinkets, funny socks, silly putty, and money.



Nearly every holiday in the winter there is a game my great grandparents used to play and it got passed down, so even though I don't talk to my extended family much if ever anymore (I prefer never) our little family unit still plays. It's the gift game. For example on Thanksgiving, your greeting should be "Thanksgiving gift" and if you can say that to someone in the family before they say that to you......then they have to give you a gift (it's usually a small piece of candy or a soda or something). If someone says it before you, then you have to give them something (which could be something someone else gave you). We play this on Thanksgiving, Christmas eve, Christmas, New Year's eve, and New Year's day. Used to we "let" the kids win a few so they would feel successful, except now....they are pretty good at winning on their own. :eek: *stocks up on candy canes and quarters for Christmas eve*

what traditions does your family have? are they old or new?
We've always had Christmas dinner together, as a family, even if it meant postponing it 'til Boxing Day because I, or my younger brother or sister, had to work. It had always been at the parental home until last year, when my wife and I hosted it, having finally moved into a house big enough let 20 people sit down and eat at the same time :p

I have no idea if the tradition will carry on. My Dad died earlier this year and so we (my siblings and I) have steered things so that my Mum thinks it's a great idea for her to go down to England and visit her older sister for Christmas - the idea being that the change of scene will take her mind of it. We'll see.

Other than that, I honestly can't think of anything that could be called a tradition in the family. I don't feel left out, though. We all get along well enough with each other without them :)

Thought of another bit:

I'm at a point in my relationship where we start becoming a part of each other's family traditions. We do Christmastime separately, so that each of us gets a trip home to just be with our families each year, but we alternate Thanksgivings. Last year we went to my house, this year to his.

My family is weird; we virtually never have any blood relatives over, we never have turkey, and we usually start "dinner" at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Dinner conversation will generally be full of off-color jokes and political debate. We usually end up watching some type of comedy film after dinner (often Young Frankenstein) while we digest enough to make room for the many bizarre pies that people brought.

His family is like something out of a Rockwell painting; at least one set of grandparents, at least one aunt-uncle-cousins group, big turkey, women cook dinner while men watch football, apple pie to close the evening. They also introduced me to the Macy's Day parade, which the men and kids watch on TV in the morning (the moms are making pies and stuff during this), and which I had only been vaguely aware of until this point. Dinner conversation is invariably warm and strictly polite, with politics and religion being most definitely verboten until after the meal. When coffee is served, young children are excused, the women take their coffee into the kitchen, and the men and college-age children sit around discussing forbidden topics (like politics).

It's very different from what I was used to, but still very fun and interesting. Doesn't hurt that his family is entertaining, either. I could stare at his grandpa's comb over all day (how does he do it?!).

I could never watch TV with my parents.. I don't even talk to them for more than 5 minutes..

We're all basically okay with each other, we just get mad a lot.

Trick eh? How long before this thread descends down into the depths of the "Gay or straight" argument?


Not long, considering you're trying to bring it there.

We're all basically okay with each other, we just get mad a lot.

maybe if y'all would ease up on that mash/mel brooks thing. branch out into steve martin movies or something. a movie or 2 that you havent seen 20 times might help cut the tension.

or a happier tv show like... the brady bunch or even dukes of hazard...

maybe if y'all would ease up on that mash/mel brooks thing. branch out into steve martin movies or something. a movie or 2 that you havent seen 20 times might help cut the tension.

or a happier tv show like... the brady bunch or even dukes of hazard...

No. We watch those because we know those are the few things we all like.