Building Righteous Traditions

table setting from our 'back to school' dinner 2011

I've been thinking about Traditions alot lately. Christmas brings it out in me. People have told me that they admire alot of the traditions our family has. It made me think that we probably had a tradition for every month of the year. I was thinking of compiling a list. I thought it would be a good way to start the year. To look at, define, compile and set goals to accomplish our favourite family traditions - and even perhaps add a few more. {oh there are so many more. so many wonderful ideas out there!}

Traditions are a wonderful thing. They give children things to look forward to, they create close family bonds, they force you spend time together, they give you memories to look back on, the more often you do something the more you can compare photos on how things/people have changed and the repetitiveness causes a spot in your heart to grow. We all have a childhood memory surrounding something our families did yearly or as a tradition. It's one of the things that stick with us!


Now some family traditions can be a bad thing. If we as a family perpetuate bad communication, feelings of being put down, name calling, impatience and any other mirade of bad behaviour we are perhaps sewing seeds of traditions that will carry on in future generations. If our focus in life is upon material possessions or disregarding the treatment of others to get what we want we are allowing negative traditions to take hold within our families.


I've found when we attempt to create righteous traditions blessings of goodness follow. In our attempts (however meager) we can be blessed in creating a stronger, happier, more resilient family. This conference talk - Righteous Traditions by Cheryl C Lant outlines many important aspects about creating righteous traditions.

"What kinds of traditions do we have? Some of them may have come from our fathers, and now we are passing them along to our own children. Are they what we want them to be? Are they based on actions of righteousness and faith? Are they mostly material in nature, or are they eternal? Are we consciously creating righteous traditions, or is life just happening to us? Are our traditions being created in response to the loud voices of the world, or are they influenced by the still, small voice of the Spirit? Are the traditions that we are creating in our families going to make it easier for our children to follow the living prophets, or will they make it difficult for them?

I've been thinking deeply about this because perhaps some of our traditions are more secular than they are Godly. I know I need to try harder to incorporate righteous, spiritually based enjoyable traditions for my children. I know I felt this keenly over Christmas when some of my spiritual advent devotionals were skipped over and missed. I felt we perhaps clung to the more fun traditions and left our spiritual ones only a small amount of time, to be done quickly.

I found this money article  very interesting. " Here's a little tip for life: try to always have something to look forward to, no matter how small. The power of anticipation in boosting our well-being is incredible.The pleasure people get from their anticipation is stronger than from their reminiscences."

This article was actually about the buy now pay later consumer society and how it actually robs us, but I thought the principles applicable to many other aspects in life. Our brains are hardwired for positive anticipation and this increases our wellbeing! It will be healthy for your family to anticipate activities that will happen throughout the year.


As I look at the calendar to see what traditions can be let go, what traditions I want to start, what traditions I want to continue I pray I might be led to the ones perfect for our family.

Righteous Traditions DO take planning. They DO take work. I've found traditions are easy to keep when I am organised. By calendaring them in, the equipment needed can be purchased in advance {so not to stretch the budget all at once}, I can start early {so not to be stressed - no tradition is any good when the mumma is cranky and stressed}, I can then invite others to join us {if we wish}, and I will know when to start getting the girls excited and looking forward to it.


May 2012 be a year of wonderful traditions for you and your family!