Those little traditions that keep us happy

RedRuby · Mar 11, 2015

Hallo Ladies,

I thought of creating a thread where everyone shares her/his family traditions, may it be old one passed over generations, newly ones you created with your beloved husband, routines you wont miss with your children, special things you share with your sibling like a secret language or those phone calls with your mother every sunday.. lets share those beautiful traditions which keep us going and always looking forward too as they comfort us through stormy times and joyfull moments...

Here I start... I created a habit of cooking pancakes every sunday.. we will lay long in bed, all together and then go over to kitchen, hubby will play with the little one sometimes read newspaper to me or sing songs with the little one.. I will cook our traditional pancakes with the banana-chilli-honey-sesame sauce i created and then we will eat together and enjoying a bit of laziness

Im looking forward to many inspiring traditions

Lavanya30 · Mar 11, 2015

There are few things that I follow..................

Lighting lamp in the pooja room both morning and evening.
Grocery shopping only during weekends along with my husband, we do it together.
Reciting small slokas to my little one (who is now 29 months old) before the bedtime, now he is slowly picking up the words and recites is along with me
No cooking on the weekends, unless we have some guests.

blackbeauty84 · Mar 11, 2015

On Sundays we wake up late have a leisurely coffee in terrace. We used to call both set of parents and talk a lot. Breakfast will be prepared by both of us listening to Ilayaraja songs. Other than that no cooking. We just laze around and talk a lot.

VaniVyas · Mar 11, 2015

Wow........... dears,

I think I should like from you all. when I read the topic I thought you all are discussing some traditions like having bath before entering into kitchen, or something which we follow during routine pooja.

Anyways, my weekend is little different. I prefer to wake up much early before everyone say by 6 or 6.15 and then make black coffee for me.
After taking a few sips, then I go for a walk for half an hour. After returning from my walk, I start preparing an elaborate breakfast by 7.00 in the morning. While all others in my house will still be sleeping. I close my kitchen door and ensure all bedroom doors and curtains are closed.
I then start playing my favorite songs in my mobile and start preparing lunch and breakfast. By the time I am half done. one by one starts waking up and the cooking time gets prolonged as I have to serve to them tea or milk.

Rihana · Mar 11, 2015

When there is a big pile of clothes to be folded, sometimes all do together. iPad has songs playing that we take turns choosing with some democratic process : ) and successfully finding matching socks in the huge pile is highlight. Surely there is more efficient way of doing the folding, but we like this.

Making pooris is another activity that is relaxing. We have an assembly line format for this, each has a job, and when we are all set up, DH says, 'all crew in position, flight ready for take off' As the kids grow older, they get promoted in the assembly line.

RedRuby · Mar 11, 2015

aaarrr all such cute family traditions you ladies created

@Lavanya30 that sounds really sweet, do you have any special sloka which you recite everyday? And would you like to share it? When i was little we did it too (grandma and me) before i went to sleep, I have the habbit to read mine one story then 2 goodnight songs.. was thinking about exchanging one of the songs into a sloka or kara charana kritham vaa.. and was just recently thinking that its really bad i dropped the habbit of lightening lamp.. thanks for inspiring me so much great tradition you created for your kid with beautiful value
and i liked the no cooking tradition :coffee

@blackbeauty84 that sounds so relaxing, what a beautiful tradition, especially the sitting on the terrace must be very peacefull

@VaniVyas nope not just pooja traditions, I meant all sort of traditions from what we continue of what we are used from childhood like for example i still do the same old rangoli in front door on diwali to others like our loved weekend traditions but you are right the ladies are really enchanting with their habbits so are you! really impressive!! getting up so early at the weekends :bowdown Im such a lazy bug cant even imagine what you are doing, your family is really pamperd they get breakfast right away

@Rihana laughed a lot about your tradition of finding the matching socks :biglaughIt somehow reminded me of christian tradition to hide and seek eastern eggs and sweets :rotflthe poori tradition sounds really great, if i will have one day another child or mine is grown a bit older i will try to copy that from you specially the promotion is great idea and too cute

It seems most people like to enjoy nice songs while cooking at the weekends

What about festival traditions etc.? Did you fully adopt the traditions of your husbands family or you sort of mix up the traditions from both sides to create new ones? We are still in the process of that as we arnt a family for so long. Plus we are having 2 different religions and stay in a country with a third one.. loooots of space to create new traditions for example trying eastern this year first time

jskls · Mar 11, 2015

Kids have the routine of starting the day with Surya Namaskar at least 3-6 times, followed by super brain yoga (our simple thoppukaranam), saying Hanuman Chalisa at bed time... and of course we have pancake sunday's followed by Wii games

We follow all the hindu festival traditions at home. I have taken up some poojas I like to do which was not followed before. Kids do enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas too. My LO happily participates in Indian poojas and will be ready to "Ding the Dinger". That's her way of saying that she will ring the pooja bells while doing Aarthi.

RedRuby · Mar 11, 2015

jskls said: ↑

Kids have the routine of starting the day with Surya Namaskar at least 3-6 times, followed by super brain yoga (our simple thoppukaranam), saying Hanuman Chalisa at bed time... and of course we have pancake sunday's followed by Wii games

We follow all the hindu festival traditions at home. I have taken up some poojas I like to do which was not followed before. Kids do enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas too. My LO happily participates in Indian poojas and will be ready to "Ding the Dinger". That's her way of saying that she will ring the pooja bells while doing Aarthi.
Click to expand...

kneesmiley to your children! They are really clever and even more disciplined then a lot of grownup´s, my respect to them. Superbrain yoga sounds really interesting, did you teach them to do so? Did you start to do yoga with them together so they will get the routine? I startet doing yoga as a kid alongside with my aunty but become so lazy lately i didnt do it in month.. just realising through this thread i became a lazy bug :hide: Its nice you picked up some poojas, me too like to do it. hubby is muslim and not into festivals at all.. the informed me about eid in the car in front of grocery store like he would say oh its raining... i was so shocked scolded him he should have informed earlier, he just said why? Will be better and more organised this year (i hope).
Ding the dinger sounds really sweet its lovely to include the children in the poojas everyone should do so. Its great you adopted thanksgiving and christmas I planned to celebrate christmas and eastern plus basic muslim and hindu festivals .. no details fixed yet :coffee

Aria · Mar 11, 2015

Sunday Roast

Day begins at 8AM at my place, the paper boy used to lob "The Hindu" paper across the porch and with groggy head I try to read the supplement (never read the main edition) when my sister used to drag me to brush my teeth, flailing my arms, "I want to know who is Kimi Katekar dating". Dad would have returned by 10AM from the market with bags of fresh produce, meat and eggs.

The brady brunch in their paisley gowns, well-oiled hair, clipped nails arrive in the kitchen to clean the veggies in vat (remember we kids used to unload the veggies in a bucket and follow the instructions from Henry Wellcome on germ-free environment). Umbels plucked, carrots scraped, peas shelled, eggs beaten, I used to only peel the garlic (too lazy back then even)

What the fuss is all about ...

By 1PM, spread of chicken biryani, mutton lababdar, fish malabar (mom's fanciful names) , subzi, raita, salad. There used to guests/visitors now and then on sundays.

Is the tradition passed ?

I hardly cook at home
Sibling[1] is always on some fad diet for the family reading WebMD
Sibling[1+], where is the time?
Others
[*], hmm, cooking more than 1 dish, hmm.

Alas!

jskls · Mar 11, 2015

Hi @Redruby,

Our Indian way of punishment is super brain yoga M yoga center: Thoppu-karanam or Super Brain Yoga. I used to do a different Yoga but I taught my kids to do Surya Namaskar and they do it though they hate it. Since they are into teens and pre-teens I just tell them doing SuryaNamaskar helps them to keep them fit and in shape. My younger really believes the thoppukaranam effect as she sees some improved performance in school. But I don't have any time to do any yoga which I love to....maybe some day I will get back on track and shape too...

It's nice to adopt all the festivals irrespective of the religions as it's those special days that brings happy environment at home especially when living abroad.