To think you don’t set out to create traditions, they just happen

[Butterflyfluff]

Inspired by the thread about Sunday nights of your childhood but there’s lots of it a Christmas too

Thing we look back on fondly and think of as ‘traditions’ are actually things that just ‘happened’ and they weren’t ‘designed’ to be traditions

Most of the charm of them comes from the fact it’s just what you did without thinking about it and when you look back they are comforting memories as it’s just the way things were

It makes me sad when people say they ‘want to create traditions’

Like so much in the world now, it seems so contrived

Family things yes, societal things I don't think are accidental in many cases. Marketing is a powerful tool.

Yes and no.
Most traditions start as something you do once, think it works well so do it again with improvements.

However there are times when you might think that it would be nice to do something and plan to do it every year. Sometimes these things work out, sometimes they don't. If they do they become a tradition, if they don't, they stop.

@Themostwonderfultimeoftheyear I agree with you I had a miserable unhappy childhood and so yes I'm going to contrive as many traditions as I like so that I get to have some like everyone else instead of just a burning emptiness. OP it isn't up to you to dictate what people do with their lives, but it is easy to judge when it seems you have had plenty of opportunity for these lovely things to develop organically.

The distinction for me is whether they’re designed to be Instagrammable.

Our family had lots of traditions associated with Christmas.

Each of them was a nice thing that happened once and we said ' We should do this again next year!'. Did it again the next year and the following year it was ' Are we doing X again?'

By the fourth year you are in 'We always do X in the week before Christmas' territory - and a tradition is established.

Not deliberate at the start, but nurtured by mutual agreement.

@PrawnCorset

The distinction for me is whether they’re designed to be Instagrammable.

But what does that mean? I don't have an Instagram but if you take a cute picture of your kids in Christmas pjs hanging up your stocking and put it on Instagram, does that make it less of a tradition? You'd imagine that the vast majority of people who put photos on Instagram do it so that can share their images with friends and family.

I enjoy seeing other people's kids in their Christmas pjs (on fbook / WhatsApp, so probably no better!)

I think traditions are a mix and match.

I follow someone on youtube who was born and brought up as a Jehovah's Witness as was his wife.

Neither celebrated Xmas as children but have left JW now so they have to create their 'way' of doing Xmas.

I once sent some samosas to my brother who lives in Cornwall, it is now a 'tradition' that I send them.

Well, that's what I have used Instagram for because we were living in a different country to our families, and the family group (of 6, our parents and a couple of siblings) enjoyed seeing photos of baby and toddler DS just doing his thing we certainly post far fewer now that we're living in the same country and would see family often, were it not for Covid -- but what I'm talking about is more extreme. The type of person who specifically does things for their Instagrammable quality, and gets visibly irritated when their children are not responding to whatever it is in appropriately photogenic ways, and is kind of 'Now, once more with SMILES!' about it all.

And no, I'm not talking about influencers who make a living from this kind of thing, just people for whom the photo opp is the real point of something, not the thing itself.

Sorry, that was to @icanboogieboogiewoogie

I have loads of traditions, routines and rituals for daft things. But I was thinking about this the other day in terms of, I've decided this year I'm going to celebrate everything!

I plan to expand on the Easter decorations I already have, they will come out every year, it will become tradition, part of DSs childhood that Mum had daft rabbits and carrots out at Easter. But I'm deciding to do it, so it's contrived.

Christmas eve boxes/bags always cause huge debate here, we always had one, my Grandma made them for us all, I'm nearly 35. I do the same for my DS, but every year, without fail there will be a thread (multiple!) About how Christmas eve boxes are new fangled americanised claptrap In oyut house it's tradition, but if they weren't, I'd definitely start doing them, so they'd become tradition.

Dh had a shit childhood, poverty, alcoholism, neglect etc, he boggles at how I celebrate everything and the traditions me and my family have. But whether they came about organically or were created specifically, surely as long as they create joy or a happy memory long term then it's worth it?

I think for some, they may see other people do things and they'd want to incorporate that into their lifestyle. If it's not something that would have naturally come up in their family, they have to create it, which is to make it start happening.

But isn't this the crux of it @DaylightSunlight?

These people want a lifestyle.

Most people just have a life.

I think that's where the distinction lies- the manufacturing of 'traditions', even on a personal scale. It's not genuine.

I suppose so but I think there's still a difference between those who create it because they either didn't have it and now want to or they were inspired and genuinely hope to try and see how it goes AND those who create/manufacture a tradition, say for instagram or social media 'content' only. I think the latter would be really more about the image than creating something nice for the family.

I also think it really depends on what that tradition is.

One of the traditions I have created for my family is family film night on a Friday. I deliberately created it in the hope it would become a tradition but if we hadn't enjoyed it I would have abandoned it. I also don't post any pictures of it on social media, it is just for the three of us. I am guessing people raised normally might do something like that naturally but in my childhood family I would flee upstairs as soon as dinner was finished due to fear of my parents.

I think it's a mixture. I commented on the 'childhood Sundays' thread with my treasured memories of high tea and TV on a Sunday. In fact, it was something my mother deliberately chose to do, replicating something similar from her own childhood that she enjoyed.

Does that make it deliberate? I think it probably does. Does that mean it was any less special? No - in fact I find it MORE special because of it.

I think it's a combination of planned/intentional traditions and spontaneous/reactive things which become traditions. Traditions usually start because somebody says "shall we try this?" Sometimes it sticks sometimes it doesn't but it doesn't matter if it's borrowed from somewhere else or occurs organically, if it works and you repeat it it becomes a tradition. A lot of my families traditions were borrowed initially but now we have personalised them.

If you're thinking back to childhood, I think it's easy to assume there was no forethought as you, typically, wouldn't be the one doing the thinking.

I agree with this! The traditions I hold dear from my childhood are the things that "just happened" every year. Except they didn't just happen, my mum put effort and thought into making them happen. You can make new traditions or carry on old ones, your kids won't know the difference because it will be their normal!

It makes me sad when people say they ‘want to create traditions’

How self absorbed of you! Why would it make you "sad" (insert rel emotion here) when other people are trying to do nice things for their families? How weird is that and what does it say about you as a person?

Some people grew up in less nice families, and have no nice traditions to pass on to their own children, only bad memories. They might want to actively create nice traditions for their children, with purpose and intent. That's a lovely, nice thing.
Why would you want to make them feel stupid and small for doing nice things?

My childhood was at times chaotic or inconsistent but we vaguely had a routine and we had some traditions for big occasions. We lived in the same town, although not the same house. I gained two step families, but had relationships with my sibling and both my parents too. I know a lot of people who didn't have that privilege, to have a level of stability and consistency. A lot of them didn't have food in the fridge. Shuffled between mums house, dads house, grandparents, or other relatives, or the care system. So no Easter or Christmas or birthday was the same. They moved around a lot, moved schools a lot. These are the people I know who are most invested in this kind of thing now. They like to check whether they are doing Christmas right, or parenting Right. They can't 'do what they did growing up' because that was watching their parents beat the living shit out of each other, or in A&E with a parent who'd overdosed, or at the soup kitchen because they had no food at home.

I think OP you are making a rather arbitrary distinction between traditions that you deem acceptable and those that aren't. As parents we all choose to do certain things with our children, that are influenced by the culture we live in or our family history. Why is a Christmas Eve box any more or less contrived than a stocking? What about someone who was neglected as a child and never had a stocking, is it bad that they want their own children to have a tradition they didn't have themselves or is it somehow false and wrong?

I never did an Easter Egg hunt growing up, am I allowed to do one with my DC? Can I share a photo of it with their grandparents since they live hundreds of miles away? Is it acceptable since I'm not on Instagram or FB?

Or this just a kind of snobbery that if you let people know you are thinking about creating traditions for your children that's common but if you just repeat the things your parents did and don't talk about it then that is OK.

Quite a few people are totally missing my point here

I’m not questioning what anyone chooses to do - I just find it odd that people set out to deliberately make things a memory or tradition rather than going with the flow and seeing what happens

It must be pretty exhausting always thinking ahead to the next week / month / year when you plan to do it all again, before you even know the outcome / reaction to the first time

@Butterflyfluff

Quite a few people are totally missing my point here

I’m not questioning what anyone chooses to do - I just find it odd that people set out to deliberately make things a memory or tradition rather than going with the flow and seeing what happens

It must be pretty exhausting always thinking ahead to the next week / month / year when you plan to do it all again, before you even know the outcome / reaction to the first time

I like planning, I like having things to plan for, even small things. It makes me happy.

I just find it odd that people set out to deliberately make things a memory or tradition rather than going with the flow and seeing what happens

It must be pretty exhausting always thinking ahead to the next week / month / year when you plan to do it all again, before you even know the outcome / reaction to the first time

OP, frankly I'm not sure your point is that strong because it seems you expect everyone to be a go-with-the-flow, spontaneous type of person. The fact is some people plan things and enjoy doing so. It doesn't matter if a memory or tradition started out planned or not, what matters is that everyone enjoys it each time.

If you go on holiday, do you plan where you're going or just get on the plane one day and go wherever the wind takes you? Don't you plan it? And don't you hope your kids will enjoy it/ have good memories?And if you do it regularly, don't you hope for the same thing?

It's the same with other activities/memories/tradition for others and some actually don't plan their holidays anyway. I don't think they go about wondering why people don't leave it to chance to decide where to go. Perhaps, some do and the point is people are different. Some people are planners and to them, the planning and thinking is part of the fun.

I'm not so sure what other point you're trying to make.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t plan anything (I’m a big planner) - just that it’s odd to plan something thinking (and announcing) that they’ll carry on doing it every week / month / year before they’ve even done it once

Agree about “making memories” as really you are hoping they remember something, but contrived.
However we moved house so many times, so many new neighbours, colleagues and friendships that faded away. We are now settled and I did take a fresh look at the things we do regularly/annually and want to “take charge” of it and have our own cornerstones of the year, things we feel compelled to do. So we have started a couple of things a few years ago and I’ll probably do them next year too. I would probably not tell you this irl though, unless you specifically asked.

I suppose it's the announcement that makes it odd. Some people do get carried away or just like to share their plans. lol.

I have a family member like this - you'll know of every plan they intend to make even before it begins. You just learn to nod and wish them good luck. If it works out, great. If not, pretend you never knew.

The only time I'll see it as an issue is if it's forced upon others in the family just for the sake of having a tradition, especially when it's clearly not working or if they're totally against it.