Does Penny put these on YouTube or something?
Somewhere, yeah.
Somebody said they they heard about it.
So it doesn't get wasted.
Okay, let's open a prayer.
Good morning, Lord.
We thank you just that we have kind of a little break in a holiday weekend.
Help us to remember to give pause to that weekend and not just be all about stuffing ourselves with hamburgers and hot dogs, but to remember uh the veterans and the people who sacrificed for our freedom.
And we pray that sometime this weekend we would take honor that.
Um we pray that um you would your spirit be present this morning as we just have some fun and talk about some of the family traditions that we can instill in our family or those that we've appreciated, and knowing that uh you are a God of traditions, you you've instituted quite a bit of tradition into uh your people.
So um when we bring that into our family, we're doing a godly thing.
So we pray your blessing on this morning.
Amen.
Okay, um, just real quick, um, let's do um just go around and give us your names again, you know, because Sam and Maria, right?
We only have two names to remember that you have to remember.
You have to remember everything, but it'll be helpful to know.
So Kate, Joshua, Suzanne, Polly, Annes.
Monaga.
Okay, and John, okay, great.
So were you guys in the panel last week?
Did you we were you were okay, okay.
So you they're familiar faces.
So okay, um, let's uh you know I mentioned the prayer that um a lot of traditions that God has put into his people.
I'm just gonna ride the horses and work them up a little quickly some of the principles and some of the things that come out of scripture.
Okay.
How about that?
Yeah.
Okay, so what's wrong?
Why don't you go ahead and uh start children off on the way they should go, and when they are old, they will have to implement properties 22 says.
Yeah, we we use this one a lot in this class, don't we?
It applies to discipline, it applies to everything, but it applies to the traditions too.
And uh you know, there's a lot of traditions that we picked up from our parents, and now that we're old, we're still doing them, so that's pretty cool.
Okay.
And let's consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all the more as you see the day drawing here.
Hebrews 10, 24 through 25.
Okay, so the reason I picked that one is it kind of, you know, when we're doing traditional things, particularly as it relates to our faith, we are stimulating our kids to love one another and to do good deeds.
So that's that's all part of that.
Um, of course, not uh neglecting to uh uh not forsaking our own assembling together.
That kind of refers to the Lord's Day of getting together for worship.
So that's probably you know your most important tradition that you can instill in your kids is regular attendance at church, you know, because kids kids see through it pretty quickly when let's go to church day.
Uh no, okay, let's watch the football game.
That sends them a pretty strong message about what your priority is about church when it's optional.
Um, but if you're there faithfully, uh then it instills something in them.
And uh, you know, the kids will sometimes complain about it, but it also applies to, you know, for us, we're not gonna do traveling teams, yeah, because worship is more important to us.
So and you know, our our kids have fortunately made that a priority there in their in their lives too.
So kind of a twofold thing.
Okay, Kate.
Uh so then are there stand firm to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our scoping word or by our footing saying this?
Okay, yeah, so um this is New Testament church, so evidently there were some traditions already in place in the New Testament church, but certainly as as an outgrowth of the uh uh the Jewish faith, that um there was a lot of traditions in the Jewish culture.
Um I think they had what seven feasts?
Everybody remember what the seven feasts were?
Tabernacles, I think it's one, Passover, Pentecost.
Um remember any of the other ones, Jeremy?
No, this is the ones I remember uh yeah, Rosh Hasha, you know, we in Jewish New Year.
So they were steeped in in tradition, and these were traditions that God already.
So um that's something that uh we should certainly uh hold to and pass on.
Okay, and when your children ask you what does this ceremony mean to you, tell them it is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.
Then the people bowed down and worshipped.
Exodus 12, 26, and 27.
Yeah, so that that was probably you know the foremost tradition of the of the Jews, and it was a family thing, you know.
Children were expected to ask that question.
So that was part of their ritual when the youngest child said, What does it mean?
And so there's gonna be times in your traditions, you know, why don't we do this?
Okay, got a reason for it.
So okay.
Yes, and his mother would make him a little road and bring it to him from year to year when she would come up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice for Samuel to greet to him.
Okay, so that's that's from Hannah.
Remember, Hannah brought Samuel to the priest after he had said that she would conceive.
She was moaning about it.
Remember, the the priest thought she was, it was Eli, I think it was thought she was drunk, but she was praying fervently.
And so she dedicated after he was weaned.
Dedicated, brought him to the temple, but then every year she would come up.
So they must add a little ritual.
It would be hard to have a tradition, even though we don't live anywhere near your kid.
You only see him once a year, but she managed to you know have a little robe ceremony.
Oh, you've grown, you know.
So um a little tradition there.
Okay, we're for everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the scriptures and the encouragement they provide, we might have hope.
Romans 15, 4.
Yeah, so the traditions are really a reinforcement to what's in scripture, um, you know, that give us endurance.
So, you know, when times get tough, then the kids can look back and okay, I had that tradition.
Kids really um thrive on I don't want to say regimen, but schedule, you know, and you know, they they've gotta be same bedtime, same wake-up time, same nap time, same meal time.
They love that.
You know, that's when they're the happiest, when they're regulated there, and traditions help that rhythm.
You know, they know okay, every every Christmas we're gonna do it this way.
You know, that there's security in that, and um teaches them endurance, but also teach them that scripture is foundational as well.
Okay, move next a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous.
Proverbs 13, 22.
Okay, where do I have that?
Oh, yeah.
Well, that's your inheritance, your your your traditions that you leave on to them, and then hopefully it goes skips a general, you know, continues a generation.
I know our kids are still doing things that I learned from my parents, Sammy's parents.
So uh that's that's part of your inheritance.
Um okay, good one.
Right?
I'm sorry, Molly.
I'm reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois, and then your mother Eunice, and I'm persuaded now lives in you also second to E15.
Yeah, here's a here's an indication from generation as grandmother with her faith and traditions she held, been passed down to her daughter and then now to Timothy.
So uh, you know, think long term when you're doing these traditions.
It's gonna it's gonna stick if you stick to it.
Okay, yes.
And his parents used to go to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover, and when he became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the feast.
Luke 2, 41 and 42.
Yeah, so that was the only tradition I could find for Jesus' family.
You know, every year they went up to Jerusalem.
And you know, from what we know, they were not wealthy.
You know, we know from when he was dedicated in the temple, they the sacrifice they offered was the poor man's sacrifice.
So they were not means, but it was a priority for them to get to Jerusalem every look every year, no matter what the cost.
So that was and then and we see that in in uh the gospels every year.
Jesus was in Jerusalem, you know, in his in his uh ministry.
So that's a tradition that stuck, if you will.
Um so just handy verses to have there.
Um just uh what are what are some traditions?
Just throw them out, a tradition that you received from your parents, something that you guys used to do.
It could be any kind of tradition, it doesn't have to be church related, but just throw a few of them out and then we'll make these guys go.
One gift on Christmas Eve?
Okay, is there a reason for that?
Or I don't know why we did that.
We just opened one gift and opened one gift on Christmas Eve.
Okay.
You don't know why.
Was it pajamas?
No, it was not pajamas.
So we had special Christmas pajamas for a while.
We all we all remember.
It sounds like you know, some traditions, you know, the I don't know if you know the story about the the family that the tradition was you always when you cook the ham, you always cut the hands off.
Oh and you cook it that way.
And so finally somebody after many years said, Well, why do we do this?
You know, why do you cut them off?
Well, your mother always did that.
And okay, well, mom, why did you always do that?
Well, grandma used to always do that.
And finally they got to grandma and she says, Well, the oven wasn't big enough.
I had to cut it off.
So they were doing these things, so it's always good to ask why, you know.
So you know, for us, we did our Christmas.
The German tradition is to do Christmas presents Christmas Eve, and then just open stockings Christmas morning.
So we kind of made uh giving simple on Christmas morning at the super price.
Okay, that's a good one.
Tradition.
I guess it wasn't a tradition the whole time growing up, but my grandmother always made a suit, a four-lady suit before Christmas Eve.
And um one year her pot broke as my mom was taking it off of the stove to bring it into the dining room with white carpet.
So the pot ends up on my mom's foot in the floor to be surprised.
Thankfully, there was another pot, but everybody just got one small of soup instead of you know as much as you wanted to.
My kids went from, yeah, their babies they'll eat these things to no, this is the worst tradition ever, and we're like fighting for something that I really enjoy.
They're like, okay, it's not that bad.
But they can barely tolerate it.
Yeah, sometimes the worst mistakes can become a tradition.
Right.
We always had a running joke in my family, you know, once a month or so we'd send out for pizza, and nothing goes with pizza better than some homemade applesauce.
But mom never got them out of the freezer soon enough.
So we got used to eating pizza with frozen chunks of applesauce.
And to the point, like, we really like frozen applesauce now, you know.
So anytime we get together for pizza, it's like, who's got the frozen applesauce?
You know, so mistakes can be become a tradition if you're not worried if you think about them.
Um, anybody else?
You guys have one to throw one in?
We have a few, but um we used to um well we did camping a lot.
Um talk about uh we had a lot of blended family, like my mom remarried, and we had uh Japanese family, and they had a tradition on New Year's.
What's it called?
But they called it the Japanese New Year.
And what we do is our our whole family would get together and we would cook the day before, and then the day of New Year's Day, you would have various families come in at different times, and you would bring your dishes out, and you would sit and you would eat with these people, and then they'd leave.
It was awesome for the son-in-law's son-in-law's.
Oh, yeah, because it was temper for everything, and there was fish, and there was all the traditional Japanese food, and um, so that would happen.
So the family would leave, and then another family would come in.
So throughout the whole day, you would just be eating all day long, but you'd bring, you know, you'd bring out the prepared meal all the time.
So, but in the morning, I kind of skipped something.
So you would prepare the meal the day before, most of the stuff, and then the morning of um my stepfather would make this soup, and it was a little bit of everything, yeah, would go in this soup.
And it was a tradition that you would eat this soup, the whole family, just the immediate family, would eat this soup in the morning before everyone would arrive.
I was not a fan of the soup, it had all kinds of, yeah, he loved it.
So, I mean, it was just and then his mom would make uh tamales for Christmas, but she'd make like 33 dozen tamales for like her whole family.
So it would be like a three-day ongoing thing of making tamales, and people would come in and help make the tamales and then leave, and then someone else would make them, and we'd have them packed in the freezer, frozen or refrigerated, right?
So those were just heavy.
The bad thing is our consistency here every week.
We're we're could we could be used as a bad example of what not, but to we didn't carry that on to our kids.
The kids have great memories of these things, yeah, yeah.
But my one daughter is the one that does the Tamales.
Yeah, it's not a family thing.
Yeah, okay.
And my son on the side, we would go to a lot of air shows, a little military shows.
Oh, okay.
My son has taken that and does that with his kids regularly throughout the year with all of his kids.
Yeah, so it's picked up on different kids of what different ways they like.
Yeah, yeah, or Donald Law does an annual tamali day as well in January, February.
Okay.
Um, so yeah, and but you know, one of the things that that does is it really brings cohesiveness to the family if you can do that.
Um like I mentioned before, with just the uh the regularity of things, so that kids feel secure.
Um, the other aspect of that is that um you know, every kid wants to feel special and that their family is special.
So if you're doing something, you've got a particular tradition, even if nobody else is doing it, that even makes it more special.
Um, so um that that brings a sense.
I mentioned a couple weeks ago that sometimes my mother would say when I would go out, she'd say, Remember, you're an Iker.
You know, okay, well, that means I've got to behave, you know, that means something.
Actually, uh I found out later that the name Iker in old Germany, and Iker was the guy who went around and made sure the weights and measures were correct.
So it's like, oh, I guess Iker set the standard, don't they?
You know, so I told that to my grandkids now, you know.
So, but it's all about, you know, if your family's not special or you don't do something special, then that has less meaning, you know.
So um, and of course, you know, one of the facts here is that American families spend about 37 minutes a day together.
And that's that's kind of crazy, you know.
But when you when you have younger ones, you know, so maybe that's all-inclusive, you know, when they're teenagers or something, but um that kind of highlights one important tradition, and that's eating dinner together every day.
You know, that's that's a priority that we eat dinner together every day, even even when they're teens, you know, have the have their friends over, you know.
So um, and and that gives you an opportunity to pray and be open about your faith.
You know, if if uh your faith is a natural part of your conversation at regular meal times, well that sinks in.
That means it's okay to talk about your faith, it's real.
Um and you can build some traditions into that meal.
When our kids were young, we always sang, you know, they each got to pray, you know, take turns, they pick a praise song, so we'd always start with a song and then a prayer.
As they get older, that kind of faded by the wayside.
But you know, when they're young and moldable, it's it's pretty easy to do.
Um and they mentioned belonging, um, it's a great way to keep the religious things going.
So we'll read through that.
Um I'm just gonna go through some of these lists and um well, maybe we first ask you is there a tradition that you guys you know, we talk about Christmas time.
So sometimes husband comes in, well, we did it this way, and the wife comes in, well, we did it this way.
I don't know if you experienced that at all, and how did you did you blend say a Christmas holiday or Easter thing together?
I think there all may have been a little conflict thing with uh Christmas, because when I grew up, I don't know if it's a Mexican thing or just my family, we would open everything Christmas Eve.
It was then her family, she grew up with it all on Christmas morning.
Christmas day, okay.
So that would be the one thing I can think of.
So what did you settle on?
Christmas morning, like always, I always do what my wife wants me to do.
So you compromise.
Okay, yeah.
Sometimes we're waiting a lot of times.
At first, when we uh our kids were young, um, we went all over the place.
We went to probably about three different houses Christmas, Christmas Day, and it was overwhelming, and then we just got to a point where we're like, we're gonna do it at our house, and if anyone wants to join us, come on over.
So we had the smallest house ever, but we had a ton of people in the house, and we were in California.
We lived in California, and everyone was all over it was buffet style, and it was just wherever you fit.
Yeah, wherever you fit is yeah, so it kind of turned into that for quite some time.
Yeah, yeah.
But getting back to, I know you're talking about the holidays, getting back to dinner, that was probably the best thing ever with all of our kids throughout their whole upbringing was eating dinner together because there was a lot of different schedules as they got older and it was difficult.
Um, everyone was kind of all over the map, but dinner became priority, and so we really worked on that a lot, and all of our kids have taken that on, so it was um one thing that stuck.
One thing, yeah, stuck.
Yeah, I mean there's a few.
That was almost a therapy session where I would ask my kids, okay, what do you want to talk about?
Yeah, because you're trying to vent or say something to whatever it is on the table here.
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, sometimes they would say something, but not always, but it gave them the opportunity to do what you got to complain?
Bring it.
We all love you, so it worked well.
And the teenager is gonna be a little tough because you know, most boys are monosyllabic at that point.
How is how is school?
Exactly.
And the girls, well, we didn't have girls, but I think the girls they they don't go oh, they just roll their eyes, I think.
So that's um but when you're there for you know half an hour eating, sooner or later food comes, you know, some talk comes out, and it takes just takes persistence and patience, you know.
Um so I think one of the things your homework assignment today is gonna be um just to kind of look at a calendar and come up with a couple of your own traditions that you can start.
Um and you know, we we kind of had them not intentionally, but we kind of had them all throughout throughout the year.
Um you know, you could make up your own thing to do on uh New Year's Day, you know, some sometimes we'll have that.
And I think the Polish tradition is you eat pork and pickle penny or something, you know, something crazy like that.
It'd be food.
Um, for us, um my family, my crazy uh kindergarten teacher and mother, on um Washington's birthday always had a tradition where we would go out to one of we lived in northern New Jersey, so we'd go out to one of Washington's places that he slept, and we'd have a picnic in the middle of winter, which was February, so we're pretty cold picnics quite a bit, but we're the only ones there.
Um so when we moved to Ohio, we thought, okay, we're gonna keep that tradition going.
So, where can we have a Washington's birthday picnic in Ohio?
So we picked the beaches of Lake Urie.
So just windswept, freezing beaches, but you know, we'd get the family, uh our kids would come, and we we had 20 or 30 people come out for this uh crazy tradition.
So now last year they haven't stuck with it.
My son did that in Bellevue, Vienna, yeah, at Washington's birthday picnic, and he had probably 20 neighbors that showed up.
He just went door to door and invited them.
So pretty cool.
Um, which highlights another thing.
So if you're doing a tradition, something like something like Washington's birthday, or Lincoln's birthday, or something, um, I don't know, uh Moses's birthday.
Do something while you're there, you know, because people are open.
So we always would do like a trivia question.
Okay, you know, what was Washington's favorite dish?
You know, okay, peanut soups.
You know, so you you can you kind of teach as you go.
So uh traditions, that's kind of my point, is traditions are a perfect opportunity to teach as well.
Because you're already on a subject, now you can get into it a little bit deeper.
So think about that.
Um you do need to, you know, that's why I suggested putting something on the calendar because you do need to schedule it and you do need to, you know, stick to it for a couple years before it becomes ingrained.
Um, and you can certainly lost your kids help to do that.
You know, there's lots of things you can do to uh that they might have some crazy ideas too, like Washington's birthday or something else.
Um take a break from technology.
So if you're doing a traditional Washington's birthday, do it someplace where they don't get cell phone reception.
You know, sometimes that alone is an issue, okay?
Once a year or twice a year we have a technology break where we put our phones away for a day or whatever, and just have fun.
Camping is a good way to do that as well.
Um then just keep on going.
Um second page lists a couple just a couple ideas.
Um when you go through, you know, look about where you came from, where what's your heritage, what's your ethnicity.
Lots of traditions that you can pull out from there.
Um in February also is uh Shrove Tuesday, you know, the day before Ash Wednesday, a lot of traditions around that.
So you could pick up things from the church calendar, but in Germany, they their way of getting rid of all the fatty and uh yeast, which is kind of the tradition, is they make what's called phosnox, these are donuts basically.
So, you know, the Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, our dinner is donuts at applesauce, sometimes frozen, you know, and so the boys love that.
Um so lots of opportunities.
So look through your heritage too, and you know what their grandma used to do, or whatever, you know, what did they do in the old country?
Um competitions, you know, families tend to, you know, we have a musical family, some families are athletic, some you know, they tend to have certain bents based probably on you guys, but have a friendly competition, you know.
If you are into sports, have a touch football game every year, or Thanksgiving Day, or um do a game night, you know, on a certain occasion.
Um have making your own pizza, that's something we always did for um parties.
You know, that when you have a birthday party with the kids, they all get along with pizza, they make it and they decorate it themselves, so make your own pizza.
To this day, our boys all make their own pizza.
So that's something that was because I was Papa John's pizza, you know.
Sunday drives, this used to be real popular in the 50s and 60s.
You'd go for a Sunday drive, just hop in the car, go someplace, um, you know, look for a strawberry picking place or look for somebody who's selling honey, something like that, just to get out and do something as a family.
Um I mentioned traditional holidays, um those are full of them, uh full of traditions.
Um you can even pick, you know, celebrate an off-holiday.
If you go through the you know online, there's a there's a holiday for every day of the year.
Um so International Tuba Day is one of those, you know.
So pick one of those and make that your family tradition.
So on you know, on June 14th every year, you know, celebrate it's a flag day or something like that.
What's that?
It's flag day.
Flag day, okay, there you go, flag day.
So um, you know, go go and pick something crazy and make that your holiday, and that'll make your family unique as well, you know.
So um, and then you can also create your own holidays too.
So if you want to do that, um, you know, family eat cake day or whatever, you can just use your imagination, that one.
Um, because we're we were musical.
I had all my instruments in the basement so they could play that anytime.
So we do family band kind of stuff and just get them playing away.
Um mentioned that adventure events are secret language, something or create a secret way to say I love you.
Um there was an old um episode of uh what's the guy with Tim Tim Allen, is it?
Um Tooltime, yeah, no one tooltime moved.
Yeah, yeah.
And he and his son wanted to show their affection for each other, but they didn't want to say it out loud because they were guys.
So they decided when one says, Hey, how the lions do it, that was a way of saying I love you.
So come up with something like that, you know.
Uh Carol Bonette used always tugger you're remember at the end because she was saying I love you too, or her mother or whatever, her mother, her father.
So find a way to say sensitive things without having to say it out loud.
Um we invented a sequel language.
Actually, this is a tradition from my father.
He and his brothers invented a sequent language where if you take if you have a consonant, you take the letter like L, you put it U, and then the letter again, lul.
So my and then vowels were the vowel A-E-I-O-U, and C and H were cash and hash, because you couldn't say cuck.
So I'm judging hash and on E I cash ash over.
So come up with a language, you know.
Sometimes it's talking backwards or something that the kids can find silly, but it can be something secret between you.
You guys got a language there, or you're looking at each other.
Yeah, I have to.
Between the grips and the blood in LA, the uh the blood would not say anything with a C word.
So they'd say like a bump of your okay.
That's where my mind went.
Yeah, yeah.
But you could make you know, you could have your own uh no, I don't know, that's true.
So that's something you can have some fun with.
Um bury a time capsule.
That's something we used to do.
We had a we had a septic system, so every time we the septic system got pumped out, we had to dig up to where the the hatch was, and there was our time capsule.
It works.
I brought it in a visual here.
This is something you can do too for cheap.
Yeah, it's just a painted stick with uh inches on it.
So kids' birthdays or whatever, they come up and like knock them off, and they can see how much they've grown over the year.
Oh, I was taller than my brother at this time or whatever.
And then you know now we got grandkids on there too.
So it's you know we put it on a stick because I figured in the old my family that they had it on a door post.
But when you move, you can't do that.
So I made it this way and hang it up, and then you send the kids, you know, something special, you're gonna take the drawer.
We did that, but we did do it on the door posts and paint it over it when we moved.
Yeah, yeah.
So things like that were whenever my mother would wallpaper, she'd let us write all over the walls so that when the wallpaper came down, so crazy stuff like that.
That's a tradition that kids remember.
Uh movie night, um that that's always good.
That involves technology, but you know, can you can yearly watch uh Christmas story or or um Sound of Music or something like that.
But Sound of Music will that'll stick in your brain for quite a while.
So adopt a restaurant, some people make, you know, okay, we're going paisanos every, you know, the third third Thursday of every month or something, you know, that becomes a kind of a regular thing.
You know, remember those days of paisanos.
You know, you get the you get to know the waiters and things like that, and it becomes a family thing.
Uh, community service, that's always a good thing to do, whether it's church or you know, a lot of families every Thanksgiving they'll go out and serve food with the kids with the um at the shelters or something like that.
It doesn't have to be on a holiday.
It can be, you know, uh we're just gonna take care of, you know, we're gonna make meals for the shelter on you know first Tuesday of the month or something like that.
So that gives them opportunities.
Um you guys mentioned camping.
Um so when your kids talk about camping, do they talk about what what parts do they remember?
I know with Boy Scouts they always remember the locations more.
We go to the beach.
The desert, the motorcycle rating.
Ah, I think it's the location more than anything that they're okay, okay.
They had all the amenities, they weren't like roughing it.
Yeah, it's usually when things are roughing it that they remember those.
You know, they don't they don't often talk, oh you remember how beauty beautiful and sunny it was?
You know, that they remember, oh I remember we were rolling in the mud, you know.
So don't let don't let uh bad times sometimes that forms better memories than the easy times.
Um have stargazing, you know, no no people don't look at the sky enough, so keep track of what's happening in the sky and go out and look at the you know, just last week Jupiter and Venus and the moon lined up nicely, so don't do that.
I have an app for the International Space Station, so I can look up, oh okay, you know, next week it's gonna be flying over.
So you can go, anybody ever seen the space station go?
Yeah, that's that's pretty cool.
So uh something like that becomes gets them out of their shells and thinking figure, and that gives you opportunity, you know.
Isn't God great?
Look at the universe, you know.
So things like that.
Um, if you have hobbies, that's part of it too.
Um create a family cookbook, so you know, collect your recipes from mom, find out why she sliced the ham at the end so every time she cooked the ham.
Um scrapbook, I'm not a scrapbooker, but sometimes kids get into that, and that's something that you can always go back to and look at.
Um, I mentioned pumpkin patches.
You know, we our tradition was to go out in Pennsylvania and go out to the pumpkin patch and do a hay ride so the kids remember that, you know, so it's consistency doing it every year.
Um first day of school pictures.
Uh that's always a tradition.
Um we have great pictures of I have two pictures side by side of first day of school pictures waiting for the bus.
And one is from like third grade, and they're all hair is combed down.
You know, they're smiling and happy, and then I have one from uh like eighth grade.
Yeah.
So when you put them side by side, it's a lot of fun.
Um so you know, just I guess make sure you put it into your into your calendar to create a few ones and report back next week, okay.
I want to hear a little different one, you know, come up with something creative.
Um throw one in there.
So since we moved here, sorry, see the clock, so we can get this in.
Since we moved here, we all moved, we moved here in 22.
2022.
May of 2022.
But some other family members showed up maybe at the year, six months prior to us.
Providentially, we showed up, but we didn't plan it other than with our we discussed it with our kids.
But the other people that showed up, we didn't like, alright, we're all who's in but it was almost like we were colonists, we didn't know anybody, we didn't have any other connection other than each other.
So the moms decided to uh have this family dinner.
So we would we would meet like once a month, maybe when it started, and it varied between every two weeks and two months, but consistently, roughly about you know, about every month.
It's a great tradition.
We've been doing it for four years now.
We didn't start it.
I think it was more towards the young like my daughter's age and her cousins that live in Hendersonville, my son-in-law's uncle and aunt live in Hendersonville, we showed up here, my son-in-law's parents showed up, another friend of ours in Murfreesboro.
So we all we knew was that's all we knew.
Yeah, yeah.
So we would get together, have a meal.
We've been doing it consistently.
I think it's a great fun tradition for the kids because all these kids, cousins, get together, and we have a competition for the best meal, it's all popular.
Oh, okay.
It's all themes.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, yeah, whoever's whoever hosts determines the theme.
So I don't know if you're all if you have connections here or anybody else, but if you have a friend group or some other connection, that's really doing well.
Everybody enjoys that that time, the kids especially seem to have some playtime and fun, and that really promotes the cohesiveness of things because when you guys are gone, because of the relationships by the young the kids, cousins are gonna stay in touch with each other and they become friends, you know.
So it trickles down the generations, and you know, so I'm I'm still pretty friendly with my cousins and because of traditions before, and then it keeps trickling down.
So that family time together become friends.
Um, you know, I've often said family is God's way of forcing you to look get along with people you would normally not associate with, but it's uh but it builds those relationships and it gives you coping skills for for I don't know if they're I just think it's true.
Yeah, yeah, but it it it gives them coping skills for dealing with people that I don't like not like them.
And another thing I wanted to add, it's it's kind of not a family thing, but it is a family thing.
Our our our um our daughter and son-in-law, and what they do is well now they have six six kids, five kids.
And brand new those are last week.
Oh, six.
Which kids are we talking about?
Five.
Yeah, I'm like waiting for many families.
Yeah, um, they take one child a month and they take them out on a date, that's right, and they let them pick what they want to do, and then usually if you have a sitter, like if you have more than one child, and if you have a large family, it's nice to spend one on one time.
So if you can just pick out one day out of the month where you're taking that child, and it doesn't have to be a full day, they usually just do like maybe three, four hours that they're gone in the evening after Jeremy gets off work, and then just give that child that special time.
It could be walking around a Walmart, who knows?
They have the resources to do it, we set the grandparents to do it.
Yeah, we'll be we'll be touching on that in a few weeks.
We'll be talking about it.
I see you're I see you took a spin on that because we don't have the resources.
I mean, we do, but we don't have family around, so we do three different opportunities.
There's a mom and dad date, there's a mom date, and there's a dad date.
So between those three opportunities and my four kids, they rotate throughout the year, and once a month everyone's getting to do something.
So they get three opportunities in the year to do something with individuals, and they have all the other things like Kenny and Caesar go and do inter life, and the girls and I go do HG, and so they have other sort of one-on-one time, but that's like a specific time.
We've been late every single month.
I still owe Caesar a date from April, but it's okay.
We're gonna get there.
But he remembers that, right?
Oh no, yeah, they know.
Yeah, yeah.
He was like, Yeah, let's just go today, and like do you see what we're doing today?
And that and that's the and the kids, you know, have that expectation.
You know, we're gonna do it again.
It doesn't take much to set a precedent with kids.
Maggie only wants to go to Dunkin' Donuts, it's fine.
Right?
And we'll talk a little bit about in two weeks, we're gonna be talking about fun times and family times and date night.
But um one of the points though is that it doesn't have to cost anything.
You know, it didn't cost anything to get in a car and go to Washington's birthplace and or Washington's headquarters and have a picnic lunch, you know, but it created big memories.
You don't have to go to a restaurant and you can make your own pizza or some dish at home.
Um so you know, kids cooking night can be once or every other month kind of thing.
So it doesn't have to cost anything if you're clever around.
Um, so don't let that stop you.
So um, and then you know, maybe enlist your parents uh what what uh traditions they remember from their youth that they didn't pass on, you know, those don't make them feel guilty or anything like that.
But um guys have any thoughts as to tradition that you want to maybe pick up that your parents started.
Didn't they did they have traditions?
Not many, to be honest with you.
Yeah, I don't think either one of us came from homes with too many traditions, kind of chaotic homes.
But I think I think the the kids' cooking would be good.
I mean, me and my mom did cook together sometimes.
Um I enjoy cooking sometimes something like that.
Yeah, not a lot of we're kind of laughing because I don't know, it's hard to think about what traditions we want to carry on.
Yeah, it's more so the traditions that we don't want to carry on.
Yeah, but if you're intentional about it, you're filling one with another, you know, a healthy one for an unhealthy one.
Right, yeah, yeah.
And you know, and it can be a lot, a lot of food traditions are around foods.
Christmas Eve, you know, Tammy didn't feel like coconut big meal because we're you know going off to Sunday school or to church and stuff like that.
So she would make burger noodle casserole, it's kind of a homemade version of hamburger helper.
But we'd get out wine glasses and let the kids drink grape juice out of wine glasses, you know.
So we we set a fancy table and candles and stuff.
It was not fancy food, but they got to drink out of wine glasses, you know, so that was kind of special for them.
So simple things like that, that's all it takes.
But you got to do it every year, so they're gonna remember it.
So um, okay, so go do it.
You got your homework assignment.
Okay, I'm gonna follow up next week on uh what traditions you have.
Get out the calendar, figure it out, maybe come up with something each month to do and be responsible.
Let's close in prayer.
Lord God, we thank you for the fact that you're a God that created traditions for us in Scripture.
We have a whole church calendar that um helps remind us of your constant love, your constant activity in our lives and your uh impact on the world.
Um as we remember, we remember your goodness, remember, remember your grace, and remember that we are a part of a greater church family, a part of the church universal, and these traditions help us reinforce that.
So help us to be in our families replicators of that, that we give our children memories that uh give them a sense of belonging, a sense of unity with their family, and a sense that through our earthly fathers and mothers, that you are our heavenly father.
And uh the things that we teach them become easier because of our traditions.
So we pray for that.
Pray for each family here and each couple, that they just have the wherewithal and the courage to go in and uh come up with their own traditions and uh try to be like everybody else, but be their own unique family, because that's uh how you treat us.
And yes, that would bless the rest of the day, especially Kenny as he preaches, and as we celebrate and remember our veterans that you would help us to, as families, honor you, honor those who went before us.
And we pray this in your name.
Amen.
Okay, go and do it.
You got your assignments.
Okay.
Next week we are leaving your child to place that we get to place paper.
So that would be good.
Okay.