The Importance of Family Holiday Traditions

Does your family have special holiday traditions you partake in each year? Our family traditions are one of my favorite parts of the holiday season! Research has even shown that family traditions have many positive effects on family relationships, and it's not hard to see why!

Holiday traditions help to celebrate family bonds, as well as strengthen them. Many families spend lots of quality time together during the holiday season especially since far away family members may have an opportunity to travel. In addition to quality time, families have the opportunity to remember the past, reflect on happy (or hard) times, and reminisce about those no longer with us. If family history is never shared with younger generations, those memories will eventually be lost. Christmas gives us all the opportunity to celebrate our family history. 

Holiday time is also a perfect occasion for spiritual growth, inner reflection, and prayer. Remembering the reason behind the holiday, not just the gifts and cookies, is important too. Many families celebrate this together by attending church as a family or reading the Bible together.

Christmas is a time full of magic and excitement for children. Which also means it is the perfect occasion to teach kids valuable lessons. The teaching opportunities during the holidays are endless and children are always happy to participate! They may not even realize quite how many important lessons you are teaching them until they are older and look back on the experiences.

Let's not forget that family traditions, if nothing else, are simply good for the soul. They give us an opportunity to create new, happy memories together we can look back on for years to come.

Curious about a few of our family traditions? I'll share just a few! We always go together the day after Thanksgiving to find our Christmas trees, cut them down and carry them to the truck. Christmas Eve we always make homemade eggnog together. At our holiday meal we use the grace that Uncle Ed always used. We always serve pickled herring, which my Swedish grandparents loved to eat. My Grandparents & Uncle are no longer with us, but we think of them every Christmas. What are some of your traditions?