January 28, 2009

Family Traditions


Kirk's Family's Traditions:
Sunday dinners at Kirk's mom's house, with the occasional variance to one of the sibling's homes on special occasions. Attending the July 4th hot air balloon festival and watching fireworks together.  Family reunion's at Bear Lake. Visiting Kirk's dad's grave on his birthday to participate in a memorial in which we write messages to him on balloons and then launch them into the air.  Spending Thanksgiving together (rotating Thanksgiving and Christmas with spouses families too). Thanksgiving traditions usually include going to a movie sometime during the day as a family, scouring the black friday ads and mapping out shopping routes, cousins playing, lots of turkey and stuffing and all the other traditional foods and playing games.  Christmas traditions include putting a big food box together for one or two families in need; rotating sibling gifts so we give a gift to one sibling each year; making our favorite treats (caramels, pumpkin pie, egg nog, etc.); spending the night at Kirk's mom's house on Christmas Eve; opening gifts on Christmas morning one at a time from youngest to oldest; and having a big Christmas Dinner.  We usually go sledding or ice skating as a family once a year.  For birthday's Kirk's mom gives us a nice gift, then at Sunday dinner we get our special birthday plate and and have cake and ice cream. Those are just a few of our favorites.

Heather's Family's Traditions:
Family reunion's every or every-other summer (this year we are going to Nauvoo for our reunion). Because Heather's parents still live in Washington, we usually go to visit them every summer for a week, and we spend the time swimming in the pool, playing games, watching movies, bar-b-queuing, sitting in their beautiful yard, and just spending time together. Our Thanksgiving traditions are very similar to Kirk's family. We always have Turkey.  We have a lot of traditions at Christmas time - we go caroling and take our neighbors goodies; we always make a million treats (almond roca, cinnamon rolls, white chocolate peanut clusters, rice crispy treats, fudge, and more); my dad reads us the story "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" on Christmas Eve; We also open presents all on Christmas morning, one by one from youngest to oldest, then watch movies, play in the snow or play games and have a big Christmas dinner. 

As a couple, we actively participate in our family's traditions (rotating the big holidays between families), and plan to carry on these as well as establish new traditions with our own children.  Family is very important to us.

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