Tradition!

I love traditions. Annual ones, weekly ones, daily ones. I love how they connect us to times, places, and people. I have so many favorites that I look forward to. And while they do change over time, that’s just part of life.

Here’s just a small sampling of traditions in my life. Some of these are from my family growing up. Some are from my parents and grandparents. Some are from Brett’s family. And some have just started with our brand new family.

Random Times

• Brett will kiss one animal statue when we go to zoos, aquariums, or other places. I’m not sure why. And he won’t do more than one. But I have a lot of pictures of him kissing animal statues. :brett:
• I still pull out a flower pin from our wedding. I wear it on days important to us but also just because at other times. I enjoy that I can still keep that part of our lives. :pansy:

Daily

• Brett and I blow a kiss to each other when we leave in the morning. If we happen to leave at the same time we drive to the stop sign at the end of the street and blow a kiss out our car windows. :kiss:
• Brett is studying ancient Greek and Hebrew so that he can read the Bible in its original languages. Every day he brings me his list of new words that he’s learned that day so I can quiz him on them. While he’s listing back to me all of the words and their meanings he rubs my shoulders or my feet. When he’s finished I give him a kiss and say, “Cuz you’re good.” We’ve got this motivation thing done. 😉

Weekly

• Sunday we have waffles for dinner. Brett makes them. And we got a real cool waffle iron for our wedding. Growing up that’s what he had for Sunday dinner. I like it. It’s quick and easy.
• Monday night is Chuck and tacos. We’ve even got it covered during the off season for Chuck since we have the first three seasons on DVD now. It seems like we’ve always got one of the DVDs in the DVD player.
• Tuesday is spaghetti and Biggest Loser. This one we don’t worry too much about during the off season. But we still enjoy it when it’s on.

Monthly

• We stop at Beyond Bread after doing our big shopping trip to Sam’s Club. We also go to Beyond Bread after the Priesthood session of General Conference. And then we walk through Bookmans.
• After attending the temple in Mesa each month we stop at Krispy Kreme and then Chipotle. It’s definitely one of my favorite Saturdays of the month.

Christmas

• From my growing up – We throw the popcorn on the tree rather than try to string it. Easier and it looks like snow. The ornaments on our tree are hand made and we have a red bow on each branch. We open a music box on Christmas Eve. And we get a wind-up toy on our plate at dinner (that one dates back to when Grandpa was a kid).
• From Brett – He said he needed a can of Mt. Dew in his stocking for Christmas. So we each get a can of soda (I prefer Sprite).
• And us now – Last year we each took a $10 gift card from our wedding to Target on the 23rd I believe and bought stocking stuffers for each other. Brett really liked doing it that way. So we’re just going to keep doing that. We made our stockings last year, this year I’m trying to get our names on them.

New Year

• Starting with the cross over from 2007-2008, I go for a run at midnight on New Year’s. Watch the ball drop on TV and then head out the door for a mile or two. It gets the year off to a running start, or on the right foot, or whatever silly pun you want. The last two years Brett has joined me. He thinks I’m crazy, but he does it anyway.

My birthday

• I have been attending the temple either on my birthday or as near to it as I possibly can, since I was 21. The only exception being when I was in Brasil as a missionary and it was impossible to go.

Summer Solstice :pansy:

• Roast beef dinner. Since that is the day Brett proposed and that’s what he fixed for dinner that night.

Our Anniversary :heart:

• I was actually a little worried as our first anniversary approached last week about what traditions we could start that we’d then do each year. I saw it as our one shot to start something. But we never have just one shot to start a tradition. Each year offers new opportunities. We pulled out the music from our wedding and listened to it again. And that was wonderful.

What traditions do you have in your life? Do you know how they started? What ones are you carrying on from past generations? What ones are brand new with you?

Tomorrow you can read other things I’ve said about traditions on A Practical Wedding.