Which childhood traditions created the best memories?

[ThisOchreLemur]

I'm a mum of a young child and I'm hoping to start lots of traditions and create lots of great family time and cherished memories for her. Which traditions made your childhood magical? Looking for ideas please. Thank you x

The tiny small things! I still remember as do my sisters on a Saturday while my Mum worked my Dad would get the toastie maker out and we would come up with different fillings - beans eggs all sorts. It was 35 years ago and makes me smile.

My Dad little thing was he would make toast and when all the Grandchildren over they would all pretend to steal and eat his toast - they teens now and still laugh about Grandads toast.

Our little tradition is we put up the Christmas tree and watch elf with popcorn - we’ve done other things like light walks, Santa trains etc the one thing our 2 children now 21 and 15 is they expect tree and elf film :) they don’t really remember the other things!!

From my own childhood I remember when it rained I would sit by the open front door with a blanket and my mum would bring me tea and toast. I would just sit and watch the rain, eating my toast and drinking my tea. Sleepovers at my Nans and she had a huge tub of different buttons and I would spend ages going through them and sorting them into colours/shapes. She also would let me get out her nighties/dresses etc and try them on. Me and my sister would pretend we were princesses.

Some traditions we have in our house : buying a new bauble each, every Christmas. We read The Night Before Christmas every Christmas Eve. Its a pop-up version that my Auntie gave to me and even though my two are 12&14 we still read it. Not sure how much longer they will want to do this, which makes me sad.
Bit of a strange one and I can’t remember how it started but me and my youngest get a pack of cheese and onion crisps and a bottle of chocolate milkshake every Wednesday, after school. He is starting secondary school next week so I won’t be picking him up and passing the shop anymore but he’s asked if we can still walk down to the shop once I get home
from work so we can still get our crisps and milkshake.

Most of ours are Christmas related like getting in the car with the kids in their cosy PJs and coats and driving round our town looking at all the lit up houses. We'd stop for hot chocolate to drink while we drove around then drive through the town centre to see the big displays. All while listening to xmas music. Then Xmas eve is the 'special' bath with bath bombs (or mateys when we were kids), xmas music playing, into new pjs with a new book to unwrap.

The obligatory McDonalds trip on the drive to the airport. Even if it's a weird time of day we still have to get it.

Sunday 'tea'. Where we live we call it breakfast lunch and dinner. Except on Sundays when we have breakfast, early dinner and then tea. This consists of cups of tea with packets of biscuits/cakes bought specially for Sunday Tea. When we were little we had very little money so Sunday tea was the only time of the week we'd see a biscuit. It made it very exciting even though it was usually custard creams or digestives and butter. Even my own kids love when I say we're doing Sunday tea today regardless of the fact there's always biscuits here.

Dad's payday. He'd let just one of us kids join him on his walk to work on his payday which was also his day off. He'd pick up his wages then we'd walk to the bakery on the next corner and he'd buy us a cream bun which we'd eat on the way home under strict instructions that we don't tell the others. Which is silly because we'd all be killing each other to get going with him on payday so we all knew there was a cream bun on the line!

Like many have said, I think a lot of the lovely memories were not actually intended to be 'making memories', they are just stuff that happened and became lovely things, perhaps because of familiarity? A lot of my warm memories are of being in the car with my mum, just me and her, driving around between places, she'd often stop in a petrol station and I'd buy an ice lolly. I also loved going out with extended family (aunts, cousins, grandparents) for dinner several times a year, that always felt very special.

My niece and I always had a gingerbread house evening. Kits from HomeBargains, lots of extra decorations, Christmas music.

Then we’d have some dinner, watch some tv before she’d be off home with her creation. Took photos of the houses and her every year. This year she turned 18 so I put them together for a montage.

Two things I'm hoping stick with my 6 year old.
Reading "dates" - we both get in to our pjs and get on my bed with some snacks, we read our own books cuddled up and then he gets to fall asleep in mummy's bed. Originally started just to get him reading for fun but I try and do it a couple of times a month if possible.
We also have a sleepover every school holidays, which entails dinner (pizza, usually) on the floor in his bedroom while we play boardgames together, then a "big night" (midnight) feast. Once we've finished playing games, jigsaws or whatever he wants to do we make a bed on the floor and I sleep in his room with him. He's very excited when he knows he will wake up tomorrow and Mummy will be there.

I think the things I remember from my childhood are random, spur of the moment days out and I try and replicate this - we are always off on "adventures" in the car, even if it's just discovering a new park.

We talked about this recently, my sons are 21 and 18. Hoodwinking their Dad, hiding things I had said yes to in the supermarket trolley and them hiding whatever treat it was and them desperately trying to "help" load the shopping onto to the conveyor belt before Dad saw it. Dh played it so well either finding it and declaring it too late to remove from the conveyor belt it or finding it when we got home and questioning how that had got into our shopping. We still do this now, this is why it is a tradition.

Pyjama Saturday, the first day of the Christmas holidays where they spend the day in their pyjamas watching tv and drinking hot chocolate.

From my own childhood, family games on a Sunday night, bingo using now defunct 1/2p to cover your numbers and playing for sweets. Card games, New Market which we loved, my Grandma saying "someone's light" meaning someone hadn't put their half pence into the kitty and onto a card. Just lovely.

My Dad pretending a ginnel (footpath for those that don't use ginnel) was a secret passage and if we met anyone else coming the other way he would tell us he had given them the password and he would always greet them (random stranger) and say morning or afternoon and make out he knew them.

My parents had us going on the tooth fairy for ages. If we lost a tooth after 8pm, we had to wait till the next day. As the tooth fairy would be out on her rounds. They'd pretend to call her office to book in a collection. Etc. I love remembering that.

so many beautiful ideas, thank you all very much :)

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What do you remember from your own childhood?

My parents didn’t create many traditions.

But my grandparents always bought us unbirthday presents so we didn’t feel left out (just one small special thing). Which we still do.

And there’s lots of things around dates and superstitions but I won’t share as it’ll out me. They are v specific 🤣

1. My daughter so loved the birthday cake I made for her 2nd birthday, she asked for it again on her 4th birthday, and has had it for her family party every year since.

2. She chooses a new decoration for the Christmas tree each year, and we make a decoration each Christmas.

3. 9 Lessons and Carols from Kings on Christmas Eve whilst prepping veg

4. We set up an email account for her when she was born. Every birthday I send her an email summarising her previous year - anything notable that happened, what she was like.

5. in recent years, ballet/theatre ticket for birthday and Christmas presents. I buy her the programme and frame it for her wall.

6. I have a cloth world map. Whenever we go away, I embroider the destination on it.

I don’t know if the following count as traditions as such -

7. When she started school, she suddenly got very nervous before I left her in the classroom. We each have a single freckle on our wrists. I told her that there was a magical invisible cord between our freckles, and if she felt nervous or sad, she should kiss or touch her freckle, and she will feel me kissing her back. She still sometimes touches her freckle when nervous.

8. Again for nerves - she once told me that her tummy felt ‘up and downy’ before a competition. I explained that it was due to nervous energy. I told her to take her nerves and put them in my hand, and then I pretended to suddenly gulp them down, and said that now Mummy had eaten the nerves for her so she didn’t have to worry. It made her laugh, and forget she was nervous.

I now ‘eat’ her nerves for her whenever she has a competition or exam or performance. In fact, a couple of months ago, one of the older girls at dancing had an exam, and was very nervous. My daughter told her about my nerve-eating, so I did it for the bigger girl too!

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Dancing on my Dad’s feet, Sunday roast at the pub after Mothering Sunday church service (about the only time we ate out!)

Sneaking into bed with mum when dad was on nights.
My aunt used to make chip pan chips served in newspaper for us to have while we watched The A team on Saturdays.

My kids had an aunt on their dad’s side who had a wild end to her garden that she called The Hundred Acre Wood and had made model houses for all the Winnie the Pooh characters, she also hid paper flower fairies in the trees.

2p bets on the horses. Just as a family: checking the line ups in the paper and picking from there then getting the results off teletext. Winner took the pennies. No winner it rolled over to next race.

When I was a child we would always go to Thomas Cook or Lunn Poly in the shopping centre for our holiday currency a week or so before our holiday. We would always combine this with a shop for last minute holiday clothes and have either a Burger King or McDonalds for tea, discussing the plans for getting up to go to the airport early in the morning over our food. It still gives me shivers of excitement and happiness years later.

Just little things - my Dad making hurdles from bamboo canes at differing heights so my brother and I could race down the garden

The satsuma in the stocking

Always fish and chip takeaway at Bognor to take on the train home

The list is long ...

With my DS now 16 everyone has a Colin the Caterpillar cake in their birthday - for special birthdays eg 10, 13 and my 50th a second grown up cake , and sparklers

Sparklers at NYE

On DS birthday he can have whatever he likes for breakfast be it pancakes cake ice cream etc

When we go away on holidays a takeaway the night before

Ice cream floats when as a family we watch a film

Singing along loudly in the car on journeys to favourite songs

Going to the pebble beach and burying DH under pebbles

DS writing a letter to Santa Claus each year when believing

The letters from Santa Claus to DS

Paddling pool in the summer - I remember how much fun my brother & I had with the pool in my parents garden each year diving in and having competitions

Going round the streets pre Christmas to look at all the lights with my parents and brother

This 100%

I don't think you can 'create' them, they evolve (like nick names - I often say on the baby naming threads nick names evolve, they aren't planned by parents to be).

My dc were reminiscing the other day about 'car picnics', where I would open up the boot of our people carrier and we'd sit in their and have our picnic. They were looking back fondly on this recurring event, but, from my pov, it was just a better way of containing mess and crumbs when we were out somewhere and it was raining so couldn't really sit outside.

• Friday night fish and chips
• Sunday family games night - board/card games
• Birthday cake after dinner and getting to chose a day out
• Valentines card through the post
• Easter holiday to a caravan
• Driving through Blackpool illuminations
• Halloween pumpkin picking and carving , trick or treat followed by Duck Apple
• Going to a local firework display then sparklers at home
• Cosy day at home with Xmas music on decorating the tree, hot chocolate and watching Xmas movies
• Xmas bedding on and mini Xmas tree in bedroom for whole December, advent calendar
• Going to see the local village Xmas lights switch on
• Going to see a Xmas pantomime
• Bacon and sausage butties for breakfast on Xmas day and nuts/sweets dotted around the house to snack on all day
• NYE trip to cinema and being allowed to stay up past midnight
• Annual trip to London to see the sights

It is the little things that don't seem to have much significance at the time. I went with my Dad, just me and him, to pick the Christmas tree every year. He had infinite patience as we went to this place and that place, ending up eventually back at the first place.
Or my mother making me go on walks with her after I dropped out of uni and moved back home for a couple years. I was always reluctant but went. I treasure the memories of that time with her now.
Back in the day before streaming we'd wait with anticipation for our favourite Christmas TV shows; Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, Charlie Brown Christmas etc.
My sisters and I always went to the cinema on New Years Eve. Hard to imagine now that we did this, but I remember it so well.
Going to a local Greek restaurant and we all always ordered the same thing.
I don't think you can purposefully create lasting memories. They just happen, and you don't know which ones your children will hold dear.

With my own child, I love decorating the Christmas tree, as we choose baubles as we travel throughout the year, so each is filled with memories. We put Christmas music on, have hot-chocolate, and light the fire.
My childhood was quite unstable and unsettled, but one tradition I do remember fondly was the fact that, whenever we went to the beach (which being a beach in North Wales was frequently quite cold) we would have a flask of very milky coffee and digestive biscuits, sitting underneath a blanket. It was the only time we would have coffee and, after a cold dip in the sea, the combination was lovely.

I used to write a letter to the tooth fairy every time I lost a tooth and my mum (tooth fairy) used to write a teeny tiny note back and put it in a tiny envelope she had made and i used to think it was the most magical thing.

Christmas was always a big thing growing up at home because my mum went OTT with decorations, food, presents (she would save all year and put alot of thought into gifts).

Now I have a son i let him choose a bauble every year for the tree and when he leaves home I plan to give him the box of baubles that he chose over the years to start him off in his new home.

One other thing I remember is my mum always making a home made cake for every birthday (think 80s fondant icing - whatever theme I picked) and its something I do now.

That is the sweetest thing