When we bring new children into our family, one of the things we most want is for them to feel like family, to settle in and have a sense of belonging. One really great way to foster that sense of belonging is through family traditions.

Traditions can be big or little. One of our most treasured family traditions is breakfast in bed for the birthday girl or boy. The birthday kid gets to choose the breakfast menu that morning, which isn’t always exactly on the birthday, but is always on a morning that the whole family is home. The birthday kid gets to sleep in while everyone else scurries around getting breakfast prepared.



Then everything is put on a special breakfast tray, complete with a bell to call for service, and the whole family marches into the child‘s room, singing ‘Happy Birthday ’ as we go. It is such a delight to see each new child become familiar with the birthday routine and to see how much they savor it, no matter whose birthday it is.



Our Christmas tradition involves a Christmas-Eve-morning gift-opening at home. This evolved from our desire to have our own home-celebration in the midst of the many holiday events planned by extended family. Doing our own thing on Christmas Eve morning has become a delightful way to lounge around and enjoy each other and our own event, while still leaving us free to visit the grandparents on Christmas Eve evenin, and on Christmas Day.

Ideally, along with the holiday rituals, you will also have some daily or weekly rituals. One of our daily rituals is bedtime story-time with dad. First he reads picture books to the youngest four. Then he reads a chapter or two from whatever novel he is currently reading to the big kids. We end the evening with prayers and a few children's songs.

A weekly ritual we have is barbecued hamburgers every Sunday after church. Another is a family screening of ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” on Sunday evenings. Rituals do not have to be big or expensive. Mostly they just have to be recurrent and family-oriented. These are the types of things that help ‘cement’ new children into their place in your growing family. And these are the memories that they will cherish as adults.

I think that as our new girls get to experience these traditions, they get a fuller sense of what our family is like, as well as enjoying the continuity that these various traditions give family life. What traditions do you have in your family? Which new ones would you like to begin?

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