Memory Jogger Monday - July 13

Did your family have special ways of celebrating specific holidays?

The specific holiday that I'm writing about today is Christmas. Every Christmas our family would send out an annual letter to family and friends describing events each family member participated in during the year. We now do this in our own families as well as the letter our parents still send out to family and friends.

My Papa (dad) crocheted each of us a Christmas stocking; see above picture. My parent's stockings say "Papa" and "Mama" and each child has their own. As each child married the spouse would receive their own stocking. And now each grandchild has one too! It is an awesome gift!

On Christmas Eve we have a special Family Home Evening to celebrate the birth of our Savior. We read from the New Testament in the book of Luke of Jesus' birth and over the years we have taken turns acting out the parts of Jesus, Joseph, Mary, the angel, the inn keeper, the shepherds and the animals.

We sing Christmas hymns and songs and those who play instruments also perform for the family our own mini concert. It is tradition that the men in the family sing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". Even some years, my parents get everyone together on a connected phone call and all the men still sing together though distant the miles.

My brother-in-law David was the first in-law to join the family 20 years ago and he brought with him the tradition of reading "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". Even when I read it to my children, I can hear his voice and his word inflection in my mind.

My Papa always read to us the book "Let's Keep Christmas" by Peter Marshall while we would color in our Christmas coloring book. Each year every child got one page to color and sign and date. My parents started this tradition when I was born. It is fun to go through their coloring book and see how our coloring skills have improved over the decades.

We were each given a Christmas coloring book for our own families that is similar to our parents. It is the story "'Twas the Night Before Christmas". I enjoy looking at the pictures my young children have colored over the past few years and am grateful that we have this special way of celebrating Christmas in our family.

See this post for more information about "Memory Jogger Monday": 

Writing a Personal History or Keeping a Journal

Memory Jogger Monday - July 6

What are some of your family traditions that you remember?

When I was young child one of our favorite Family Home Evening activities was going to the grocery store and picking out our own box of cereal. It could be anything we wanted. I remember choosing Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries most of the time. We could keep the cereal in our own bedrooms and eat it whenever we wanted; though I'm sure my parents wanted us to eat it for breakfast. I remember that sometimes by the next morning some of us would be out of cereal already. I also remember that my mom and dad always picked "healthier" cereals than their 5 children. Back then it was 7 packages of cereal.

Fast forward to this past weekend. It was our 2015 Ohms Family Reunion; the 15th consecutive year of this reunion. There are now 27 of us - though 5 were unable to attend this time. We have continued the "cereal tradition" for all of our family reunions. The above picture is what 22 packages of cereal looks like.

When we pick out what we want we hand it to Papa (my dad) and he takes a black marker and writes our name on the package and in the cart it goes. We can't change our minds once our name is on the package.

I love these kid size shopping carts. The children had so much fun filling their carts with cereal.

Here is some of the group making their cereal decision.

And my choice this year is more healthier than Cap'n Crunch. This year I chose Crispix.

See this post for more information about "Memory Jogger Monday": 

Writing a Personal History or Keeping a Journal