Family traditions, how can I give my daughter lasting happy memories

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, I was reading an article in Junior magaziene about Easter traditions and family traditions in general, and it occured to me that we don't really have any traditions in our family.
I would really like to start some, so that my daughter will have lasting childhood memories.
I remember from my childhood, every year before christmas, we'd go to this really nice shop with our friends down the road and choose our candy sticks for our trees.
It was only something very simple, but I was talking to my friend the other day about it, and she has fond memories of that too.
I just wondered what family traditions you all have and what you remember most fondly about you own childhoods.
I thought about an easter egg hunt this year, for my daughter and her little friend down the road. I can't really think of anything else though.
I'd be greatful for any ideas.

sunday lunch around the table

gardening.....we all plant sunflowers and see whose grows tallest! have done this for years,and the teenagers love it still

also,planting bulbs etc every year

easter egg hunt in the garden...most years

decorating xmas tree together....take in turns to put star on top

as a lone parent i only have my own childhood to draw from,so try and create alot of memories. i make the effort to take them to ice skate,play tennis,football and cricket....i'm useless,but the memories are going to be worth it!

wishbone from the chicken on a sunday..

kiteflying on a bank hol monday...

Stuff I remember as a wee lassie:

a few magical CHristmasses where we had loads of people round.

weekends visiting or being visited by close family friends and their kids. Lots of long walks and delicious cakes.

Mainly stuff with lots of close family and frineds, not necessarlity anything specific.

Thanks everyone. I remember food being a big part of my childhood memories, particulally puddings.
My daughter is fussy though and dosn't have a sweet tooth.

When my dad was home from sea, he used to take us uptown for a day out: we'd go to Leicester Square to see a film, then to Chinatown afterwards for food and chat. We used to talk about all sorts. I remember feeling very grown up

Getting the Christmas decorations out in December and putting them all up; chucking loads and loads of that shiny stringy stuff over the tree, very tasteful I think we used to make woven baskets with my mum, to hang on the tree and put chocolates in, but can't really remember.

My daughter is a winter baby, so I was thinking about some sort of summer party for some of her school friends in our garden?
Maybe just arrange for 3 or 4 friends and have cream teas, bubble machiene etc?

I'm aware that I need to make more of an effort to have her friends from school around, especially as she is an only child.

We always got to the beach for a walk and fish and chips on new years day.

That sounds nice, I like the sound of fish and chips on the way home.

we used to go away somewhere rural for new year, and I remember going out in the cold to the phonebox to ring people and wish hem happy new year

no need to go mad with big summer parties, better to just have a picnic (in the garden if no other venue accessible), go to a park with those water jets you can run through, go to local school fetes etc

I think just going on lots of smaller informal outings puts less pressure on you than trying to 'create' quality memory moments.

It's always the random stuff they remember anyway, like the time daddy let them have crisps in the bath, or the time at the seaside when they saw a man catch a big fish etc

I love that idea mummyloveslucy! My DD's birthday is 17th December so she's got a long time between parties.

My childhood is full of very bad memories but the few good ones involve always having both sets of Grandparents over for dinner every christmas, Getting to help mow the lawn at Grandad's in the summer, Playing tents with the flipped over sofa whenever Mum did a big vacuum, the paddling pool in the summmer, Oh, and my GP's always putting sugar in lemonade to disperse the bubbles - because obviously the extra sugar was much better for us that the fizz

so true MrsBadger

I remember my mum dancing with us all the time, shes loves motown and would dance with us for hours

my dad deciding to teach us a lesson in the pitfalls of gambling by giving us monopoly money and letting us choose some horses to bet on

We do charity shoe boxes at Xmas.

I remember as a child:

• Monthly visit to Chinese restaurant ( this was very very swish, the first one in town and for miles around, big,big treat )
• Dividing up the presents under the tree onto chairs for people after Christmas lunch
• Easter egg hunt in house and garden with written clues by my Dad
• Rambles in the woods where my Dad would pretend to be a giant bird - very funny when I was little then it got a bit

We regularly do:

• Weekend lunch
• DVD evenings with snacks ( DD - 3 too young for cinema )
• DS chooses Xmas tree with DH. DD and I decorate it.
• Theatre trip twice a year
• DH brings home a different type of Jellybean every Friday night and we all have to guess the flavour

Starting this year:

• Bluebell walk
• Own section of veg patch - sowing started today

Lovely thread - thanks. Brought back some lovely memories for me.

Summer evenings..... Walk to the pub and having a bottle of coke and packet of crisps sat outside on the wall

I bet everyone has a memory if the garden sprinkler on the lawn!!!

My daughters school have a lot of traditions, like visiting the victoriam musium every december where they dress them up as victorian children and they dance in the street.
They also do the charity shoe boxes at christmas. They have easter bonnet parades and easter egg hunts etc.
It acctually quite hard to compete with the school. That's probubly why she likes it so much.

Going to see newborn lambs
Going to bluebell woods
Sledging, building snowmen, throwing snowballs
Collecting Autumn leaves, blackberries
Making pancakes
Walks in the woods
Decorating the Christmas Tree
Growing sunflowers

(But not in that order!)

Most of mine are Christmas related!

Sitting in the living room on the sofa just admiring the christmas tree lights in the dark.

Trying to "feel" presents under the tree to see if we could guess what they were...

Christmas Eve tea party.

Christmas Eve poems read by my Dad before bedtime.

Lining up on the stairs on Christmas morning with my brother and sisters waiting to hear from our parents if father christmas had been and then racing into the living room to open oue stockings.

The whole family watching "The Snowman" on telly every year and crying at the end . it still chokes me up now!

Oh and Cristmas morning walk before christmas lunch andbeing allowed to choose a few sweets to take with us on the walk!

Decorating boiled eggs at easter and finding the biggest hill to roll them down

My dd has a birthday in early Jan so we have a bigger "summer" birthday celebration for her.

Each main school holiday I try to take her out by herself without her little sister.

At my mother's house she leaves sweets/chocs on the pillow for visitors (e.g the dgcs) like some hotels used to do. dd loves this and does the same in return if we have overnight guests.

Thanks everyone, some really lovely ideas.

Sunday night was always family game night. The TV went off, and we all played board games together. THese days, we have wii nights with our children.