Create Traditions.

This can be anything from carving pumpkins at Halloween, to strawberry picking in the Spring to movie night every Friday. When I was growing up, some of my favorite memories were the holiday traditions. When I was really young we would watch the Wizard of Oz when it came on TV once a year. On other nights, my mother would make me a weekly treat to watch certain TV Shows. We’d have popcorn one week and other weeks we’d have ice cream sundaes or baked brownies or cookies. The point is, we did it consistently and we did it together. It was a gathering/tradition. I looked forward to it and I still remember it today.

One of the traditions in our home now is Movie Night every Friday. This has been going on for nearly a year. I mentioned it earlier in the Build Forts Lesson, that Movie Night began with my son wanting to camp in his fort in the living room on the weekends. We started watching movies while we camped.

Every Friday night we order out, we have an early dinner, and get ready for bed. We pick our movie of the week (usually by Wednesday) and by 7:00pm on Friday night we are on the sofa with our popcorn and treats watching our movie. The forts are optional but movie night is here to stay.

Recently we attended a Friday Night Movie night at my son’s school in their parking lot. Many of the children were playing on the playground and amongst their friends. Before the movie my son was also playing. As the movie began, we set up our chairs in front of the big blown-up screen and my son got on my reclining chair and laid back on my chest, just like we were at home snuggling on the sofa.

I looked around and many of the kids were consumed with playing and being out late on a Friday night. I said to my son “It’s ok if you want to go play with your friends.” He looked back at me and said, “It’s our movie night, I want to watch the movie with you.”
That one sentence made all of the Disney movies I have sat through over the last year worth every moment. I will never forget my 5-year-old choosing our tradition over all the other FUN that was going on around us.