Once you say “I do” the world you know changes. Not in a way that makes it FEEL different, but in a way that both you and your husband KNOW that it is different. My husband and I had to go through the Greek Orthodox version of pre cana. Here it was impressed upon us that once we are married we become our own family. That although we both come from separate families, and both love those families, that we now must put our own family first. I think although we want to think that this is easy, that we always will put each other first, it is definitely sometimes hard. One of the ways it is difficult is family traditions. How do we make our own family traditions with out losing the family traditions we love?
I live a bit of a distance from my family. This is hard. I also live extremely close to my husbands family, and although it’s great to have family close by, I find myself jealous of the fact that we get to participate in their family traditions more than we get to celebrate with my family’s traditions. So far in our first year of marriage I think we accomplished our holiday schedule very well, and we both did a little give and take….but throughout this year, I don’t think we found any traditions that were “OURS”.
I hear from others that once children are involved traditions will change and mold to be what’s best for you. This makes perfect sense, but how do we make it work for us as well as both of our families? I’m sure this is a problem most newlyweds face. Especially ones who are both close to their families. Maybe the idea is to think outside the box. Traditions don’t have to be only about holidays. So here are a few ideas that I have about what could be considered, or may be considered tradition in the future.
- Anniversaries: For the past 8 years my husband and I have always taken time out to celebrate our anniversary. First we celebrated the anniversary of when we started dating. Then we celebrated the anniversary of the day we got engaged (which is Valentine’s day so he got off easy on that one) and now we look forward to celebrating our wedding anniversary. This year we are taking a small trip to Newport, Rhode Island, and I hope that in the years to come we continue to celebrate our anniversary.
- Birthdays: Every year on each of our birthdays my husband and I take each other out to dinner. This is a day that we get to choose to eat wherever we want. Because I am the picky eater my husband normally gets jipped on where we go to out to eat…so on his birthday he always takes advantage and takes me out to his favorite restuarant which is in Manhattan. It’s called Shabu Tatsu and it’s Japanese food…I personally don’t like it, but hey it’s his birthday!
Ok…so it’s not much but it’s something. A start! I guess we have years and years ahead of us to create our family traditions. It’s all just a part of the journey of marriage.
So what are some of your family traditions? Maybe I could steal some and make them ours!
photo credit: Microsoft Office Online Clip Art
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I have been married long, long time (32 yrs) and traditions ebb and flow as the times change. As a new bride, I just went along with the traditions of the our families to keep the peace. One year we attended 3 Thanksgiving dinners to keep everyone happy. We were both sick the next day from all the food and festivities but figured if all the moms were happy we were good. Then we got a call from my mom who was not happy we skipped out for desert. Then his mom because we missed appetizers with her side. Then his step mom because we came so late we did not get to see everyone who was there earlier in the day. And they all felt we were in the wrong, just could not understand we could not be in more than one place at a time. After that year, we alternated from his family to my family. Once kids came along, we stayed home. The family could come to us or not, I had babies to worry about, not grown people. And they did come, and for the most part, they got along fine.
Other traditions come along with children. You do something a certain way more than once, and kids remember and before you know it, it's a tradition. Children need that certainty that something will happen a certain way. It is reassuring to them.
Other times you and hubby will just find a way of doing something and it becomes a tradition because that is what you do all the time. We have a friday night happy hour drink after work on our patio year round. We have ice cream for lunch once each vacation. We go to all our kid's college sports games and scream until we have no voice. We say grace before each dinner. There is more but as stated above, they change as life goes on. You will find your own traditions, just look for them, speak with hubby and before you know it, you have a tradition. Don't just look for holiday rituals, find the specialness of every day.