by Lynette Crawford

Created on: November 22, 2007

Family traditions are events that allow us to delight in our children. Our children are the joy of our hearts and our traditions are forming bonds that will last a lifetime.

We have many traditions that are unique to our distinctive family. We celebrate the day we met our children and they joined our family forever with a "Gotcha Day". It is a day of celebration of them and their adoption into our family. We tell their "Gotcha" story, watch their "Gotcha" videos, look at their "Gotcha" photos and just generally celebrate our son or daughter. The honoree gets to choose the activities all day and the day culminates in a celebratory dinner in the evening. (This is unique and different from our birthday celebrations with no presents because we are celebrating the greatest gift, which is our family.)

Another of our favorite traditions is one that started by accident. I(mom) am a photography enthusiast and take lots of photos of our children. When our son was a baby, I took a photo of our son on his Daddy's lap with both looking into the sunset in the distance. Now, fourteen years later, the annual Daddy and the children photo shoots have become a cherished tradition and a wonderful treasured keepsake for our family.

Other family traditions are simple picnics that we have in our special places'. In spring and in fall, we love to picnic along the James River just off the Colonial Parkway in Williamsburg, Virginia. (These picnics always follow a day of adventure at Busch Gardens). In the fall, our picnic tradition finds us along the Blue Ridge Parkway looking for fresh apples. Every year we try to attend one of the many Apple Festivals along the parkway and pick some fresh Virginia apples. The day includes a picnic on the parkway with, of course, fresh apples, hiking the trails and a stop at our favorite candy factory on the way home.

We have many other traditions, too many to name: traditions at the holidays, traditions on our annual beach vacations and traditions with extended family. As with all our cherished traditions, we celebrate our family and most of all delight in our children and the blessings they bring to our lives.

Learn more about this author, Lynette Crawford.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.