Essay On Family Traditions

Tradition is a trait that can be found in every family throughout the world. This is particularly true for my family as I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. Of all the traditions that my family had while I grew up, the one that sticks out most in my mind is spending time with my family on Sunday afternoons and holidays either playing games with my cousins, eating food fresh off the grill, watching holiday fireworks, or learning more about my family history than I already knew. Therefore, my family tradition has a rich historical perspective, high importance, and great effects on me to this day. While growing up, I was very lucky to have two full sets of grandparents, and I considered myself even luckier to have lived just three...show more content...

Usually as we played, Grandpa would be on the other side of the yard grilling up something delicious for the entire family to eat. After the games were over and the food was finished cooking, the entire family sat down to eat and talked about the events of the past week. Also, on major holidays, my family once again headed over to Grandpa's house to watch the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. His backyard was located just off the Detroit River, so the fireworks show could be seen flawlessly. When the show ended, we always counted on Uncle Dewey to have a few more fireworks tucked away to keep us children entertained for at least a little while longer. Another activity we did before everyone departed on Sunday evenings was gathering around my grandparents to listen to their stories. They taught us different parts of our family history, by telling about their parents who unfortunately passed away several years before. To my family, this weekly tradition was very important because it helped ensure that our family remained close and that our history continued on to another generation. Therefore, my grandparents made sure that they ingrained, in us, the qualities that formed and made our family so we could pass on all their stories to our children one day. Additionally, this tradition was important because it showed us from a very early age that we could

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My Family Traditions

Family, they are single–handedly the most important aspect of your development into an independent adult. I've grown up in a white suburban neighborhood, and my hometown is in Champlin, Minnesota. My life is heavily influenced by my family and family traditions such as celebrating Christmas and having Easter egg hunts. Childhood is the most crucial part of everyone's life. It's also the most critical time for learning and because of this, while you're growing up, you tend to absorb a tremendous amount of information. Parents are a major force in a child's development, and they instruct what is right and what is wrong. The ideas and traditions of parents typically pass on to you, and then to your children. These ideas and traditions will be a major key in helping you find who you are as a person. In the past two years, I've come to realize that my family, family traditions, and the food I consume has transformed me into the jolly, independent, young adult. Traditions and celebrations such as Easter and Christmas have been a valuable reason for helping me find my identity. As a child, I would be awoken by my sister on a chilly Christmas morning, and it's one of the most incomparable feelings in the universe. Realizing that it's Christmas gives the biggest energy boost imaginable. Dashing out of my room, I run downstairs and catch a glimpse of all the presents for myself, and because of this, Christmas has taught me the holiday spirit and how to be an extremely jolly person.

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My Family Heritage

Family Defined

The word family has changed so much in the past century. A family back in the 1950's was probably considered a husband, wife, and one or more children. Times have changed and families have become much different. The Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others book defines family as a, "Unit made up of any number of persons who live in relationship with one another over time in a common living space who are usually, but not always, united by marriage and kinship" (Beebe, Beebe & Redmond, 243). Families can be broken up into five different types. The first is the traditional family, which includes a mother, father, and their biological children. Next, is the blended family which includes...show more content...

William, known as Bill, was born on July 20, 1921 in Minneapolis, MN. He worked in the plaster/stucco business for over 25 years before working at Northwest Airlines. His wife's maiden name was Lorraine Mulcahy. Lorraine was born on August 13, 1922 in St. Paul, MN. Lorraine went to college at the University of Minnesota where she got her Bachelor of Science degree and became a dental hygienist. My grandma "Lo" is the genealogy nut in our family. She has searched for birthdates, marriage licenses, and other documents of her grandparents. I called grandma Lo to get some information on my great–grandparents and family stories. I found out I was part Norwegian and I never even knew it! Grandma Lo's parents were Edward Mulcahy and Olga Shermoen. Her father Ed was born on April 15, 1880 in Minneapolis, MN. Ed worked as a claim agent for the Great Northern Railroad in the twin cities. Olga was born on March 15, 1888 in Hawley, MN. She also worked for the Great Northern Railroad as a matron. Edward was 100% Irish while Olga was 100% Norwegian. This makes my grandma Lorraine 50% Irish & 50% Norwegian. My grandpa Bill was adopted in Minneapolis so his genealogy is unknown. He was told by his adopted parents that he was mostly Irish. If we pretended Bill was 100% Irish, this would make my mom 75% Irish and 25% Norwegian.

Father's side

My father's name is Gerald Otto Utz. He was born on January 23, 1950 in Springfield, MN. He is

My Family Traditions

Traditions are meaningful activities that you and your family can do regularly. Traditions play a big role in our lives because they help us bond with our family or friends or they help us catch up with some family or friends you might not see a lot. Most families have yearly traditions that they do. Most of the time it is just to have family time or to catch up with some family that you don't normally see. My family has quite a few traditions that I will be telling you about!

My family has different traditions that we do every year. These are very important to me because I get to see my family that I don't normally get to see and I get to go to some places that I only go to once a year! One of them is our family Christmas with my cousins that I only get to see around twice a year. We also have a family Christmas with my half sister and her family too that I don't get to see very much so that is also very important to me. On our family Christmas with my grandparents, my mom and dad, my aunt, uncle, and my cousins the day starts off on the twenty–sixth of December. They travel from Monroe, Louisiana to Greenbrier, Arkansas every year. The twenty–sixth is one of my cousin's birthday so we always celebrate that right when they get to Greenbrier. They normally get to Greenbrier around noon so my nana always cooks a special lunch and then we have cake and give her the presents we got her. After that, we normally catch up a little bit with them and then at dinner time we always Get more content

My family has a lot of different traditions, but one stands out more than the others. The holiday I am talking about is Christmas. My family has always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve. We start the celebration by going to our church's Christmas Eve service. During this service, we sing Christmas songs and watch a video of the first Christmas. After the service, all myfamily goes to my grandparents' house to open presents and have supper. The meal is different than most Christmas meals. All of my family members bring an appetizer instead of bringing a main dish. One of my cousins is Haitian and one of uncles is Italian, so we have a lot of different cultures represented. My favorite is my uncle's meatballs. Once we eat we have two different places to sit. One is called the kids' room and the other is the adult room. You are supposed to sit at the kids' table if you are not married. Once we have finished eating we all head to the living room to open presents. Before we open presents, one of my younger cousins reads a Christmas poem. A different cousin reads the story every year. When it is finally time to open presents, we always open them one person at a time and always go from youngest to oldest. We go one at a time because my grandma likes to see what everyone got. Once everyone has opened their presents, my grandma tries to recruit some people to play bingo. She likes being the person who calls out the numbers because that's what her mom always did. We have been doing all of these things for as long as I can remember. My dad says they have been doing things this way for the last 40 years. My grandma is the main person that has been carrying on these traditions.

I would say my grandmother is the glue to our family so everyone follows her lead. I think that my other family members are so used to doing these things that they will continue to do them in the future. I would say I am a participant in this tradition. I am one of the younger grandchildren, so I do not say much or try to change anything. If I did offer a new idea, I do think my grandma would consider it. My whole family takes part in this tradition. I have six aunts and uncles and twelve cousins, so my family is pretty big. Everyone

Family Traditions

Culture is an important element of self– identity and contributes to how individuals view themselves and the community they live in. Family is our foundation. If we do not have a foundation to build on, having a strong sense of self might be difficult. Your family is where you get your basic beliefs and understanding about life. I cannot imagine not having the family I have and them teaching me what they taught me. Beliefs, social values and ethics vary depending on the community and/or ethnic group. I tend to consider culture as being types of foods eaten, religious practices, politics, clothing worn and music. The ways in which people live within the community are passed down from generation to generation. ...show more content...

You do what you have to do to survive. I think this poem can speak directly to the young generation today. Our children today are spoiled compared to children fifty years ago or even twenty years ago. They take for granted the hard labor and sweat our ancestors went through to earn a simple dollar. If children today were faced with the same trials and tribulations of those our ancestors experienced they would surely be full of complaints.

Keeping the family name alive is of most importance to my family. After my maternal and paternal grandmothers passed away, the family cohesion seemed to be lost. My grandmothers definitely held the family together but of course we did not realize that until they were no longer around. The holiday dinners and parties no longer took place and all of the family members began to scatter and lose contact. Since then, my family has reconnected and regained the unity we lost for a short while. We are now closer than ever and continue to tell the same stories our grandparents passed on to us. I find myself telling my son stories that were told to me as a child because I do not want that history to be lost. I believe knowing the struggle of my grandparents during the great depression and through segregation made me appreciate what I have today. I want my son, nieces and nephews to see that anything in life is possible.

Cultural identity is something that must start at home. Parents should teach their children

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We all have family traditions, some of which we take pride in, some of which we dread and despise but, whether you know it or not they are what make us who we are. One of my favorite traditions that I can truly say I'm passionate for would have to be Thanksgiving dinner. The dinner for the holiday goes by in a blink of an eye because of all the enjoyment. However, the preparations that lead up to the day are long and prestigious even though they are what make the dinner so great. Since the holiday comes up before we know it, we get started as soon as the year hits mid fall.

The first thing my family and I think about is who we are going to invite. We consider if thanksgiving this year will be a simple close family get together or loud aunts and uncles kind of gathering. We acknowledge what we did last year and choose the opposite to switch it up. The messages and emails are sent as soon as the invite list has been created. Replies from our family must be given as soon as possible only to make the preparations a little easier even though, we all know it will be hard anyway. Once we get all our responses in we can now move on to our next step.

Decorations are not that important for any family who celebrates thanksgiving but, in our family it is one of the main tasks. If my mom makes a scene if we wearing something that resembles even the slightest bit of a hobo. You know she will make a scene if the table is not at it's best. We spend hours upon hours in the home decor stores, slowly making our way to stores like Hallmark for the small details. "The little things count" is a phrase we hear over and over again. So, "The little things count" is what we remind ourselves over and over again. Even a sprinkle or confetti or a small flower arrangement can make a huge difference.

Days pass until it is a about a day before thanksgiving. It is time to gather the food. We get what we get every year, the traditional mashed potatoes and turkey meal. We head to the grocery store as soon as we have generated a list. My mom leads the way, pushing the cart in front of my siblings and I through each aisle telling us what to get, as she stares into the list as if it is her mission to get everything on that list.

My Family Tradition

While preparing for this paper, I thought very hard about any specific traditions that my family has or has had in the past. Although thinking and brainstorming for a long time I could not come up with one tradition that my family has. I think that the main reason for that is because, almost everyone in my family has gone through a divorce. Ending a marriage seems to be very popular in our society today, one statistic states that, "50% of first marriages end in divorce." However common divorce may be the pain and heartbreak seems meaningless, until it happens to you. The reason why I can't think of any family traditions is because all of my family traditions have been ripped apart because of two people's ill...show more content...

Fortunately for my grandparents, each one of their children grew up without hesitating to love another person.

The eldest of the three children is my Aunt Sue. She and my Uncle were married in 1969 and had two daughters, Marci and Mica. My Aunt and Uncle are the only fortunate ones to still be in their first marriage. However, their daughter Marci did not follow in her parents' footsteps. She thought she found her soul mate and was married in 1999. Less than a year later, they were divorced. Luckily for her, she remarried in 2001 and is still happily married. My Uncle Les, the youngest child, and his wife, Lisa, were married for four years when they decided to call it quits. They also had two children, Kelan and Ashton. However, unimaginable they remarried 8 years later and surprisingly, everything seemed to be perfect. Some said that they were an example of true love. However, they were wrong a little over a year later, they filed for divorce, again.

My dysfunctional family never really seemed to bother me until it hit home, very close to home. Lets start with where it all began. My mother and father met in 1975 and were married in 1977. Like most, the two were madly in love and wanted to start a family. Five years later, in 1982, they had their first child, me and my sister Katie was born three years later, in 1985. When I first started to think about family traditions, I talked to my mother who I

It was going to be a bad Christmas. Nothing could be done to salvage it. The little tree (the only one we could afford) was bare, surrounded by its fallen needles. The Christmas presents were not much; Santa did not have the means to give the children what they had on their Christmas lists. It was going to be awful, the season of joy and giving was corrupted, nothing in the tiny apartment even resembled Christmas. The little, dead, bare Christmas tree was prophesying what the season would really bring that year to the family, almost nothing. How could they save the holiday? It seemed almost hopeless, but it turned into my family's most loved and fun family ritual.

To this day, I cannot remember a...show more content...

The experience listed above has touched my life deeply, but it never struck me as a way to help my family grow.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie said, "We know that the Lord operates through families. He himself lives in the family unit; it is his eternal system of government in heaven and on earth, and he always offers as much of his own system to men as they are willing to receive" (McConkie, p.35). What a wonderful thought! Families are so amazing, they are pieces of heaven and visions of eternity that we can experience here on earth, given to us from our Heavenly Father. Since families are such an important asset in this life it is vital for us that we learn to appreciate them and to utilize the time we have together. Adler said that "the most fundamental human need is to belong" (Albert and Popkin, p.18). We can show our families how much they mean to us and how much we need them in our life by spending time with them, getting to know each individual and compromising for each other.

According to Wolin and Bennett family rituals are "vital to the life of the healthy family" (Wolin and Bennett, p. 407). When we take the time to plan and accomplish family recreation, we make that experience more special and meaningful because we, as a family, chose to

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