Building Traditions: 1st Annual Crummett Family “we-love-to-be-a-family-day”

Pat and I have struggled with what to do for certain holidays.  With anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, our birthdays, and Christmas, that’s a lot of gifts and/or celebrations for just Pat and I.  In the past we’ve had different expectations, which would leave one of us disappointed if the other person did not meet those expectations.  I suppose I have my mother to blame.  We always had baskets waiting for us Easter morning full of candy and presents followed by an indoor AND outdoor Easter egg hunt.  We had themed birthdays where we invited all our friends as well as family birthday parties on our actual birth date (since our friend party was often on the weekend).  Christmas included a fancy dinner, caroling, and thoughtful gifts.  I had a very blessed and fun childhood.  Then I grew up and realized how much work all that takes!  I have no idea how she did this all and not completely burn out.  It’s also with sadness that I look back and realize I was pretty ungrateful.  I can tell you right now we didn’t do even a fraction of that for Mother’s/Father’s Day or parent birthdays.

On the other hand, Pat’s family didn’t do as much (granted he didn’t see his extended family as much and holidays at my house often included them). 

Feeling that disappointment made most holidays miserable.  So I lowered my expectations to zero.  Seriously.  I did not expect him to even remember that it was Valentine’s day, or our anniversary anymore. And I gotta tell you, I was SO much happier.  In fact, I even forgot our 10-year anniversary and it didn’t matter because he forgot too! 

I could have continued in blissful un-celebratory happiness, but... we have kids.  And I want my kids to have that exciting childhood too.  But I don’t want to burn myself out nor raise ungrateful kids.  So back to my original problem.  Is there a way I can make some of these “just me and Pat” holidays into more, yet still have them be low-maintenance?  The answer came when I came across an article on PowerofMoms.com (love that site!).  April Perry originally suggested this for Valentine’s Day, but I thought it would be perfect for our anniversary.  With July 4th just the week before, we had already talked to our kids a little bit about the founding of our country.  I thought it’d be perfect to turn our anniversary into Crummett Family Founding Day.  

I explained that July 10th was the day our family was founded.  I used a paper grocery bag to make a super simple treasure map with 5 heart outlines and dotted lined connecting each heart to make a path.  I cut out 5 pink hearts, wrote a really simple activity on the back of each and stuck them to the wall around the living room for the kids to find. 

Here were our activities:
1. Group hug
2. Hear the story of Our Family Founding (Pat and my love story....)
I kept it pretty simple, but each year I plan to add more details.  It was good to say out loud what first attracted me to Pat, how we fell in love, and why we chose to get married.  Also, it was fun to see the big grins on the kids’ faces and Heidi’s excitement when she realized that “the boy I noticed” was Dad!

3. Pop poppers (that I forgot to use on July 4th)
Lydia called them the ‘onions that you throw at the ground’)

Lydia being a party pooper when she didn't get ALL of the extra poppers

4. Family dance party
5. Ice cream treat and share what we love about our family.

Overall it was simple enough that we were still able to spend most of the day on our backyard landscaping (we took a break between Activities 3 and 4), yet eventful enough that the kids had fun and asked if we could do it every day!