Tell me about little, old-fashioned things you do for your kids

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

It's always so busy and zany these days. I try really hard to do small things that I hope they will look back on and remember when they are grown up.

I bake a simple cake most weekends. They eat it up really fast so it's mostly gone by about Tuesday! But they never have shop bought cake.

I read Brambly Hedge or Peter Rabbit stories in big deluxe illustrated editions with DS (8) as he still loves them.

When it's hot, I sponge their temples and the backs of their necks with a cool flannel before bed.

What are some simple, little, old school lovely things you do for your DC?

So my mum got us all advent calendars with pockets in and the “elves” would come and leave treats or tokens for something. It was sooo magical. The tokens were normally for like a book or something, nothing crazy fancy, like something you’d get in a stocking.

I was the only kid on the council estate that had the elves. When they would leave the toy that the tokens made up they would leave tiny footprints.. I do this for mine. Made Christmas even more magic and I think it inspired my life long love of whimsy. Maybe not “old fashioned” but she got it form her mum so to me it is. There’s just no magic in a chocolate calendar.

While my kids still believe I want every aspect of Christmas to be magical. I am 26 with three kids and I still feel the magic of Christmas and that’s all because of my mum.

Poetry snack time once a week after school. I use our wedding tea service, tablecloth and nice wee cakes from the local farm shop. We read poetry to each other for about 20 minutes.

When we have pot pie (chicken etc) we all like the filling a little different, so I make individual ones and cut their initials out in pastry so I know who’s is who’s apparently they loved that when little.

i always put a paper napkin in their lunch boxes - their friends thought it was very posh !

I can’t remember why, but one time DH bought me a huge bouquet of flowers. The girls thought they were so pretty so they each chose one flower each to have in their room, still do it with my youngest who still lives at home.

they each have a Christmas tree in their bedroom, but their favourite is the one in the dinning room, it’s always a real tree ( the main living room one is artificial). We would go and buy it on the last day of term, going through Woburn park to see the reindeer, stop for hot chocolate in the village before taking the tree home. They would decorate it the next - have complete free rein some years it looked very festive !

Also I feed them offal. My Nan used to give us liver and onions and I know it’s a health trend now but I’ve always believed it’s the best way to get them iron.

We like to travel and I’ve been making my girls their own travel books with pictures and dates of where we have been. They’re only almost 2 and almost 5 at the moment and I’m undecided whether I’ll give the books on their 18th birthdays or something.

Easter tree, we cut some branches off our tree and blow and paint eggs or draw on paper eggs, same as we did as children.

We make all of our bread and stuff like wraps, crumpets, pittas - they’ve been stirring dough since they could hold a spoon.

Tongue twisters and knock knock jokes, word searches and arrow words.

Playing cards, I taught DD patience last summer holiday and she got obsessed, she then taught some of her friends.

Paper planes have been very popular recently and origami.

Pressing flowers from the garden and churchyard.

Lovely thread.

We have a fabric advent calendar too, which MIL made for DH when he was little. ‘The elves’ bring it each year and leave a little chocolate coin in it and some days there will be a note saying that something exciting is happening that day (stuff we’d planned in anyway but we make it an elf thing). We don’t have a visible elf and no tricks or anything, but she gets very excited about if ‘the elves’ will come or if they are going to invite her to the panto again or on a Christmas light walk.

We play a lot of board games.

I bake a lot, home made bread, cakes and biscuits. Pancakes for her birthday breakfast every year.

Write letters to the fairies in the garden, sometimes they write back. Lots of picnics in the garden or park.

Caravan holidays - where we also do the ‘holiday cereal’ thing and usually get the Kelloggs variety pack, the only other time is Christmas. The rest of the time it’s porridge, weetabix or eggs on toast for breakfast. Lots of time on the beach looking for shells, skimming stones or going crabbing.

Making potions and perfume with petals and leaves and stuff from the garden.

We decorate for different seasons/ events - same stuff comes out each year and DD and I make lots of things together. I’m not really not artistic and it all looks very homemade and a bit rubbish probably to the outside eye, but it makes her so happy and is just a nice way to make things special.

DD has been enjoying making ‘dancing dollies’ out of paper, along with those little paper fortune teller things - I can’t think of the name of them, the ones where it’s like ‘pick a colour’ ‘pick a number’ then you read the little message inside the flap.

Getting out and about all the time really, but especially love in autumn/ winter then heading home for hot chocolates to warm up and watching a nice movie together under a blanket.

That’s a really beautiful idea. You could get them one of those maps where you scratch off the places you’ve all been to go with it.

This is a gorgeous idea and one I may actually copy!

forgot that I also look out for old fashioned picture books (without words) in charity shops even though my older two can read, and we take it in turns to make up stories from these for each other.

I also like to try to make a big deal of running errands with my kids and generally trying to live like we’re in a Shirley hughes book as much as possible 😂

We all sit in bed together on either a Saturday or Sunday morning and have a cuppa together (a very weak one for my 4 year old!), we have a roast dinner every Sunday without fail and go for a walk beforehand, book before bed always, we do lots of crafts, we go for walks around the forest with lists of things to see that we need to check off, we bake together, we play card games (DH is teaching our 4 year old poker!).

Oh the travel books reminded me, I write a letter for him the night before his birthday (and I did one the night before he was 6 months), seal them and put them away for him to have when he’s an adult, if he wants them. If he doesn’t then they’ll be a nice reminder of each year for me.

We do coin rubbing with crayons and paper, we watch a TV show once a month from when I was smaller, they currently enjoy fun house! We also enjoy trying recipes from my great grans recipe book.

This reminds me of the excitement of having those Variety packs back in the 80s. They are rubbish now.

Another one I do which isn't really old fashioned but I think a nice tradition is that every Christmas I make each child their own photo album of our adventures for the year and give it to them on Christmas Eve. I figured that nowadays we dont really print photos now the way we used to as they are all on some device, and if something ever happened to me they might not get to see the majority of the photos Ive taken so it's a way of making sure that they will always be able to look back on those time. Plus it makes a nice Christmas Eve of sitting looking through all the photos and talking about all the things we've done over the year.

I do holiday cereal and always have home made cakes on their birthdays for breakfast.

For their birthday I always draw/make them a home made card, what I draw depends on what they are currently into.

I bought dd a flower press and she picks some flowers in our garden to make pictures with. We make daisy chains, we forage for blackberries and raspberries, we set up a small tent in the garden and that’s our chill out area that we sometimes sleep in, we go for long walks in local woods, ds climbed up a tree and made a rope swing. I make their birthday cakes each year and once a week we make a couple of loaves of bread.

Yes to living in a Shirley Hughes book!

Ah, I'm so glad I started this, these are all lovely!

I hang small bunches of the rosemary and lavender that grow in our garden around the house.

We hang their bedding out in summer so it smells of the garden and sunshine.

When it's hot like today, we go for a woodland walk and paddle in the stream - no air con and gaming etc!

We also get paper/ picture advent calendars. Every Dec 1st, they get a small box with an advent calendar, their own decoration to hang on the tree, and a new jumper (usually a fair isle one).

Put flowers in their rooms sometimes - even when the rest of the room is a total pit. I love that @MinimumRage
I've never known anyone to do that and I think it is a beautiful idea.

Twenty-five years or more ago, when my DC were youngsters, I used to visit my elderly great-aunt once a month. Great-aunty still lived very much 1950s-style - no TV, just a radio constantly tuned to The Archers, she hand-washed all her laundry, she went to church every morning, and she always laid on a lovely old-fashioned Saturday afternoon tea for the two of us.

When I set off home again, she'd always give me two tubes of Smarties and a box of Mr Kipling French Fancies "for the children" so they had some sweets on Saturday evening and their own nice little Sunday afternoon tea-time treat the following day. As they grew older, it became a family tradition that I'd come in calling out, "I'm back from Aunty's!" and my DD would ask, with genuine interest, "How is Aunty Gloria?" and I'd reply, "Oh, she's fine, thanks. She sends her love - here it is!" as I handed over the Smarties to her and DS.

Aunty Gloria died seven years ago. DD is now in her mid-thirties and lives 25 miles away. But whenever one of us goes to visit her, I always pack her a tube of Smarties and a box of French Fancies. Over the years the traditional greeting has changed from "Aunty Gloria sends her love" to "...And Aunty Gloria's love transcends Time and Space" and it's now, "...And here's some Transcendental Love."

I dearly hope that Aunty Gloria's Transcendental Love will carry forward through generations yet to come.

My children are in their 40s but I have some old -fashioned things I do with my grandchildren when they come to stay. The little ones anyway.

When I put them to bed I always read them a story, and it is nearly always from the Just So Stories book. I do have to be careful about which stories to read and change a few of the words, as 130 or so years after they were written there are definitely some which can be considered inappropriate. At the end of the story I always say 'And THAT'S the end of the story'. The littlest one usually has a bath and I sit on the loo seat and we chat. Just before I leave them to go to sleep I give them a kiss and a cuddle and say the same thing every time. 'Night night, sleep tight, see you in the morning light'. Routine is very important for them - they know exactly what to expect and they love it.

We also do cooking... proper food not fun food, so something we are all going to eat together.

@AreThereSomewhereIslands oh that made me emotional how wonderful re your Aunty Gloria. Reminded me of my Grandad - thanks for sharing.

what a gorgeous thread. My girls are young adults now but I still cut up a bowl of fruit (berries, apples etc) for the younger one.
sometimes I wonder if it’s babyish but really it’s just a healthier version of supermarket chopped fruit. And it’s in a little dessert glass bowl now, not a plastic one! I also leave a sandwich on a plate sometimes. Of course she can make her own but it’s a little gesture.

we go on a week away every summer and still play uno and table tennis with them. To the extent that I had to buy uno at the airport when we forgot last year. Dd2 takes uno on trips with her friends!

I still do them a packed lunch/snacks for school even though they are teens. They still get to choose a birthday breakfast. The chocolate cereals are still a treat for occasions. On holidays we take card games and do hangman etc which they still like. I still do them a Christmas Eve box to share which is age appropriate.

My eldest DD is back home from uni and we were all playing Uno yesterday!

I saw a group of lads on the train to York who were late twenties and they were playing Uno the whole way. Nearly asked them to deal me in

I love this thread!

I used to do lots of nature walks with my DD’s and we would make a little nature corner at home with conkers and feathers and things we found on our walks.

we also play cards a lot and my DD was lucky enough to learn some new games from her friend’s Norwegian grandad that we have enjoyed playing.

Shirley Hughes is my all time favourite children’s writer and at Christmas we always read her books.

I also taught them both to see by hand and using a sewing machine.

And baking, always did lots of baking! Now DD makes bread for us when she’s home and youngest DD bakes birthdays cakes and makes clothes.