Search Results for: blog the importance of family traditions

Family Time Strengthens Family Bonds

This weekend, I am making some family memories with my husband, my son, and my in-laws. A few years ago, my husband and I started joining my in-laws on their annual trip to the Common Ground Fair up in Maine. This will be our second time going with our son, and we are excited to take many pictures and record videos and notes of our experiences. Family vacations are one of my favorite ways to connect with both my parents and my in-laws and I am very lucky that we have been able to make a couple of trips pretty … Continue reading →

A Family Affair

Why not make scrapbooking a family affair this holiday season? Christmas is the perfect time to get immediate and extended members of your clan involved in creating a scrapbook. While it’s unrealistic to think that every family member is going to jump at the chance to flock embellishments or arrange die cuts, there are a number of ways you can get even the most unenthusiastic members of the group to contribute to a family memory book. For starters, you can use family gatherings to interview the oldest members of your clan. Sit down with great-grandma or great-Aunt Sue and get … Continue reading →

The Importance Of Preserving Family History and Traditions

Today I had a philosophical moment. I was thinking about genealogy and in particular about my mixed ethnic background. I have ancestors from Italy, Ireland, Canada, Scotland, and more. At times, I have yearned for a more direct connection to a single ethnicity so that I could more clearly identify myself with a particular culture. I wanted to be able to say that “I’m Italian” or “I’m mostly Irish” or something like that. There is one clear statement that I can make about my heritage and that is that I am an American. In fact, if you consider what makes … Continue reading →

The Return of Lost Traditions

We have written some here in the Parenting blog about family traditions—changing them, establishing them, letting some of them go. As a parent who has seen my children grow from infancy to nearly adult-hood, I am finding it interesting that some of the family and holiday traditions I said goodbye to a couple of years ago when my kids were in the throes of adolescence, have started to return… My eldest daughter and I were chatting this morning on our post-dawn commute—making some plans for the weekend. It was actually a combination of finding out what her social plans were, … Continue reading →

Family Dinner Conversation

I’m a big fan of the family dinner. As the kids have gotten older though, we have less and less nights where we are all home for dinner at the same time. And I’ve noticed our dinners are more rushed either because the kids need to move on to homework or we need to leave for a meeting or activity. Honestly, sometimes the family dinner almost feels like I throw food at the kids and they throw their empty plates back. I try to ask them questions about school, but most parents will relate to the “not much”, “boring”, and … Continue reading →

A History of Marriage & Family

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Yesterday I posted a discussion and my opinions on the Senate Vote and Marriage. I got a lot of responses to the blog that were thoughtful and filled with passionate conviction. Truth be told, subjects like marriage, family and more are deeply personal and they elicit from even the most uninterested I the subject a passionate viewpoint. The Demise of Family Values Interestingly enough, the worry about the changing family and the demise of the family unit is hardly a new concern. While challenges such as gay marriage may not have confronted American families in the late 1800s, the worries … Continue reading →

Ringing in the New Year with Most of My Children

In my last blog, I wrote that I would be ringing in the New Year, with or without my children. My older teens had plans and wouldn’t be part of our traditional family time. Well in a strange twist, it was my 12-year-old son who ended up spending the night at his best friend’s house. And my older teens ended up at home. Although their plans fell through and they were disappointed at first, we ended up having a great evening together. While munching on goodies like summer sausage, guacamole and my, what some may consider to be a strange … Continue reading →

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Growing up, our family had lots of traditions. Some were fun and silly, others were a bit more serious. But there is one in particular that I never really learned to appreciate until I was older. Every year, in December, my grandparents would take a portion of what they would have spent on our Christmas gifts and set it aside for each of us to do a service project with. Sometimes we would combine it as a family and do a big service project, other times we each chose our own, but it helped remind us of what Christmas is … Continue reading →

Why Do You Do Genealogy?

Genealogy might be a hobby that you are passionate about, and your favorite way to pass the time. Have you ever taken a moment to think about what, exactly, compelled you to start doing genealogy? What fuels your desire to continue? The answers to these questions may be very personal, and will be different for each genealogist. You might do genealogy because you are searching for an answer. If you were adopted, you might be searching for your birth parents, and wondering if you have any half-siblings. If you gave a child up for adoption, you might be doing some … Continue reading →

The Protector / Securing Personality Type

The “Protector/Securing” personality type, or the ISFJ personality type, describes a person who is an Introvert (I), who perceives the world through Sensing (S), who uses how they are Feeling (F) about the people and circumstances in a situation to base a decision upon, and who views the world from the viewpoint of Judgement (J). If you are an introvert, it means that you are more comfortable focusing on your own inner thoughts and ideas than you are with interacting with a room full of people, especially if those people are strangers, or people whom you do not know very … Continue reading →