Beginning your own family means that you also get to decide which traditions you will keep from each of your own families from growing up and which new traditions you will start for your family. Creating your own traditions allows you to shape the future of your family and to enjoy celebrations and accomplishments, holidays and other events exactly how you want and how fits your family best. These can be a combination of family traditions, something completely new, or an addition to how you have previously celebrated occasions.

Where to Start

It can feel both overwhelming and exciting to be building your own family and setting your own traditions that will allow you to enjoy all the moments in a way that makes you happy. Family traditions are passed down from generation to generation, and while some may expect that they remain intact many others expect that each generation will adapt them to fit their own needs and to remain current. These are easily seen in things as small as an orange in the tow of the stockings at Christmas as a hand me down from the depression, or turkey at Thanksgiving because they’ve always had turkey, or in larger expectations such as a car for a specific birthday or everyone travelling no matter how far to be together at certain times of the year. It can be difficult to change or end some of these, but building your own traditions can be great for many reasons and may benefit the entire extended family as well.

Begin with determining the things that matter the most to you and your family, including any breakfast routines, gatherings, decorations, and games, it can be anything that you do regularly that creates joy. Anything small or large can become a tradition for you, to evolve things that you already do into a tradition simply continue to do them on a regular basis and use them to show others how you appreciate them or care for them. In order to start a new tradition that you want to try but haven’t done before, discuss it with others who it will affect and then simply begin to implement it. It can be as lowkey or as elaborate as is comfortable for you. A tradition will simply be something that you want to do the same way every year, every season, every birthday, or regularly on any other occasion.

How to Follow Through

If you are making big changes to how you celebrate events especially, you may find there is some pushback from your extended family and others that you celebrate with. An example of this is deciding to stay home Christmas morning if you are usually spending the early morning or staying overnight with extended family or changing a portion of a meal to vegan or other dietary needs. As this affects other people, you will need to be prepared to follow through with it enough times that it becomes expected, at which point your new family tradition will be established.

Who to Involve

It is up to you how far your tradition will spread, who you will involve, and how they will be involved. You can include only the immediate family of your spouse or partner, kids, and yourself, you can extend it to your parents or in-laws, your siblings, and your friends. Consider how they will enjoy it, how they will add to the moment, who you want to share it with, and if it is feasible and reasonable for them to engage in your family traditions. There is no rule or guide on who you include in things that bring you joy, but they should add to it rather than detract from it.

Benefits of New Traditions

You will find there are several benefits of creating new traditions. You may find that you feel more solidified in your family as an adult and in creating your own family, you enjoy the freedom of doing things your own way, and you may find that others will follow you and they see how much you are enjoying it. Family traditions are a way to bond and bring your family closer together. It created shared memories and may become some of the favorite things that your own children remember from their childhood. They will solidify into memories of your time together, and the joy that you share with them during those times, and they will perhaps pass these things on to their own children, ensuring their favorite memories of you are things their own children will remember about them as well.

Creating your own family traditions and building these new traditions into your life will provide you with a way to bond with your own children and partner, even other members of your family or your friends, in a way that you have not previously been able to do. It creates memories, it shares your own joy with those around you, and it allows you to enjoy the things that matter most to you.